


When Time Is Frozen

by Jaina



Category: Alias
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-26
Updated: 2003-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-05 05:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 34,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaina/pseuds/Jaina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Syd finds herself in an impossible situation and even in the midst of it must sort through the demons of her past in order to live her future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Post Endgame

Sydney Bristow groaned in frustration. This was all she needed. Her day had gone from bad to worse and when you're an international spy wanted by some of the world's most dangerous people that's just not good.

It had all started that morning when she had gotten into a stupid little fight with Vaughn. They weren't a couple that fought often, they were far too aware of the fact that each precious moment of life should be savored because it could all be gone in an instant. This morning though, she had argued with her father over the details of the operation and then Vaughn kept siding against her.

It had all deteriorated from there. She hated leaving for an op. like that, still angry with Vaughn and her father, but she didn't care. Something else was bothering her today, something she couldn't quite think of and it was driving her crazy. And now this.

The mission had been going perfectly fine until she had gotten into the underground tunnel. Of course, it was a tunnel, she thought, it had to be a tunnel. It couldn't be somewhere like, oh say, a nice well lit open field, now could it. No, it just had to be a tunnel, a tunnel that had caved in behind her no less.

"Vaughn," she called out to her former handler as she flicked her hand light around the place. "Vaughn," she called again as she assessed the situation. She hadn't been hurt and the tunnel seemed to be stable so she was in no immediate danger. She could probably continue the mission but her exit would probably be much more complicated now. She didn't even bother to try to contact Vaughn again. He would notice when she didn't check in or answer, but it was likely that her signal wasn't even getting out with all of the interference.

She crept along, flush with the wall, her light in one hand, her pistol in the other. Sydney wasn't one to act on intuition, in her line of work information and cold hard facts were all that mattered, but she had a bad feeling about this.

_

Irina Derevko resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Sark was getting on her nerves. Despite having been a part of her organization and partially trained by her, he was at times incredibly incompetent. It was also tiring, the necessity of constantly guarding her true thoughts and emotions and watching for potential threats. After months spent with Jack and Sydney where she only had to appear mysterious and she could let her guard down at least partially, it was tiresome, but necessary, she reminded herself. It was a means to an end and that was all that mattered, except for Sark's incredible blunder.

He had apparently- from her current situation trapped down here with no immediate way out- neglected to make sure the tunnel was stable or failed to notice a new threat. She sniffed disdainfully again as she began picking her was down the tunnel again and towards the Rambaldi object and allowed herself the thought that if Jack had been with her, this would never have happened. Of course, it would never have happened because he would have strangled her on site, but it was still a nice.

As both women approached the artifact from different sides of the tunnel neither were aware of the other or of how much they were alike, they simply headed for the object or their missions without looking back.


	2. Chapter 2

Sydney paused as she neared the object. Speed was essential, although she didn't think she would be out of here anytime soon, but a little stealth could go a long way. The thudding of footsteps coming down the tunnel in the opposite direction alerted her to the presence of another person and she flicked her light off immediately. Picking her way forward, even slower and with more caution than before, she edged towards the room where the Rambaldi object was being kept.

She froze as she stood in the entrance to the room and took it in with a sweeping gaze that searched for potential threats. The Rambaldi was on a simple pedestal in the middle of the room, but it was the person on the other side of the room that made Sydney's blood go cold. It was none other than her mother, Irina Derevko. Within an instant of catching site of one another both had their guns leveled at the other without hesitation. It had been amply proven that both of them would shoot if necessary. However, as it stood then, they both had a problem.

"It seems we have something of a stalemate," Irina stated with her usual lisping Russian accent.

Sydney remained quiet for the moment, considering her options. As it stood she really had none. Irina would shoot before she had a chance to get the artifact and there was no cover in the room which she could hide behind. However, at the same time Irina couldn't get the Rambaldi, either. Like she said, it was a standoff and Sydney didn't like it one bit.

"Looks like it," she said through gritted teeth. There was only one thing worse than facing her mother in her book and that was facing Sloane, but honestly right now this confrontation was the last thing she needed, especially after this past week. Elsa Caplan was a reminder that she hadn't needed and she had brought up many things, Sydney hadn't wanted to think about.

Like the fact that maybe her mother really did love she and her father, that maybe, just maybe not everything Irina Derevko had said and done as Laura Bristow was a lie. It was practically all that she had thought about on the plane ride to this forsaken place. Once again, however, she was being proved wrong. Here was her mother, able and apparently willing to shoot Sydney. She couldn't imagine being able to shoot her own child, no matter what the circumstances.

"Sydney," Irina said easily, "You shouldn't have come here."

Ignoring the fact that what her Mother was saying could reveal some valuable piece of intell that could help them find and take down Sloane, Sydney could barely keep her fury in check. This woman was trying to tell her where she could go and what she could do as if she were a teenager, not a fully grown woman, no thanks to Irina. It was almost more than Sydney could take not to rush at the woman in fury.

"Listen to me," Irina said urgently when she noticed that Sydney wasn't truly paying attention.

"Why," demanded Sydney, "Why should I listen to anything you have to say? All you've done for the past thirty years is lie to me and my Father. Everything you've said and done has been a line. In fact, you were so good at lying Russian Intelligence actually included some of your suggestions in the official rules for deep-cover missions like yours. Apparently you were groundbreaking." She said it with all the scorn and sarcasm that she could muster not really believing that her Mother cared enough about her for her words to pain Irina, but hoping they would at the same time.

The look Irina gave Sydney was the closest to surprise that she had ever seen on Irina's face, but that didn't dissuade her. If there was one thing the two women had in common it was their stubborn natures.

"Sydney I don't care how much you resent me or hate me," Irina said angrily, "You have to listen to me. If you don't, I can't help you I can't keep you safe."

Later Sydney would realize that at that moment she hadn't been thinking clearly like the analytical agent she had been trained to be even from a very young age. But at that moment all she could think about was not letting her mother get a hold of one more Rambaldi.

"Back off," she said harshly, wishing, hoping that Vaughn would get here soon with her back up because if they didn't she would face her mother.

"No, Sydney, you have to leave." She heard her Mother's urgent voice in hear ear in fits and snatches. The room started to spin around her and a cold shiver crept down her spine. She struggled to focus and keep her hands steady, as she pointed her weapon at her mother. She hardly even felt her knees buckle; the ground rushing up at her was simply one more blur among many.

Through her blurred eyes and hazy mind she saw her mother walk to her side and crouch down beside her. Brushing the hair back off of her daughter's fear and panic filled face; Irina said almost harshly, "You should have listened to me, Darling."


	3. Chapter 3

Sydney paused as she neared the object. Speed was essential, although she didn't think she would be out of here anytime soon, but a little stealth could go a long way. The thudding of footsteps coming down the tunnel in the opposite direction alerted her to the presence of another person and she flicked her light off immediately. Picking her way forward, even slower and with more caution than before, she edged towards the room where the Rambaldi object was being kept.

She froze as she stood in the entrance to the room and took it in with a sweeping gaze that searched for potential threats. The Rambaldi was on a simple pedestal in the middle of the room, but it was the person on the other side of the room that made Sydney's blood go cold. It was none other than her mother, Irina Derevko. Within an instant of catching site of one another both had their guns leveled at the other without hesitation. It had been amply proven that both of them would shoot if necessary. However, as it stood then, they both had a problem.

"It seems we have something of a stalemate," Irina stated with her usual lisping Russian accent.

Sydney remained quiet for the moment, considering her options. As it stood she really had none. Irina would shoot before she had a chance to get the artifact and there was no cover in the room which she could hide behind. However, at the same time Irina couldn't get the Rambaldi, either. Like she said, it was a standoff and Sydney didn't like it one bit.

"Looks like it," she said through gritted teeth. There was only one thing worse than facing her mother in her book and that was facing Sloane, but honestly right now this confrontation was the last thing she needed, especially after this past week. Elsa Caplan was a reminder that she hadn't needed and she had brought up many things, Sydney hadn't wanted to think about.

Like the fact that maybe her mother really did love she and her father, that maybe, just maybe not everything Irina Derevko had said and done as Laura Bristow was a lie. It was practically all that she had thought about on the plane ride to this forsaken place. Once again, however, she was being proved wrong. Here was her mother, able and apparently willing to shoot Sydney. She couldn't imagine being able to shoot her own child, no matter what the circumstances.

"Sydney," Irina said easily, "You shouldn't have come here."

Ignoring the fact that what her Mother was saying could reveal some valuable piece of intell that could help them find and take down Sloane, Sydney could barely keep her fury in check. This woman was trying to tell her where she could go and what she could do as if she were a teenager, not a fully grown woman, no thanks to Irina. It was almost more than Sydney could take not to rush at the woman in fury.

"Listen to me," Irina said urgently when she noticed that Sydney wasn't truly paying attention.

"Why," demanded Sydney, "Why should I listen to anything you have to say? All you've done for the past thirty years is lie to me and my Father. Everything you've said and done has been a line. In fact, you were so good at lying Russian Intelligence actually included some of your suggestions in the official rules for deep-cover missions like yours. Apparently you were groundbreaking." She said it with all the scorn and sarcasm that she could muster not really believing that her Mother cared enough about her for her words to pain Irina, but hoping they would at the same time.

The look Irina gave Sydney was the closest to surprise that she had ever seen on Irina's face, but that didn't dissuade her. If there was one thing the two women had in common it was their stubborn natures.

"Sydney I don't care how much you resent me or hate me," Irina said angrily, "You have to listen to me. If you don't, I can't help you I can't keep you safe."

Later Sydney would realize that at that moment she hadn't been thinking clearly like the analytical agent she had been trained to be even from a very young age. But at that moment all she could think about was not letting her mother get a hold of one more Rambaldi.

"Back off," she said harshly, wishing, hoping that Vaughn would get here soon with her back up because if they didn't she would face her mother.

"No, Sydney, you have to leave." She heard her Mother's urgent voice in hear ear in fits and snatches. The room started to spin around her and a cold shiver crept down her spine. She struggled to focus and keep her hands steady, as she pointed her weapon at her mother. She hardly even felt her knees buckle; the ground rushing up at her was simply one more blur among many.

Through her blurred eyes and hazy mind she saw her mother walk to her side and crouch down beside her. Brushing the hair back off of her daughter's fear and panic filled face; Irina said almost harshly, "You should have listened to me, Darling."


	4. Chapter 4

"No," the word was out of Jack's mouth almost before she had even finished speaking. He wasn't even sure why he said it; he just knew he couldn't allow it to happen. He watched as Irina's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"No, Jack? You of all people should know better than to try to tell me what to do."

Jack couldn't his grimace at both her reference to their life together and the memory of some of their spectacular disagreements. "It won't work, Irina," he said stating the logic behind his objection, despite the fact that it wasn't his real reasoning. "Sloane would never believe me," he finished.

"He knows you would do anything for Sydney and it shouldn't be that hard for him to believe that you would turn me over to him. You would probably just ask for tickets to my interrogation," she sneered.

Jack couldn't help but notice the sadness in her voice, when she said that, though. He had to be imagining things. If nothing else, the past twenty years should have taught him that Irina didn't care about him in the slightest. "How do I know you're not just luring me into a trap to turn me over to Sloane."

Irina rolled her eyes in frustration. She had almost forgotten that Jack was practically as stubborn as she was. "Honestly Jack if I was going to, I would have done it before now. Use logic, Jack, I'm telling the truth now."

"Don't tell me about honesty, Irina," he said indignantly, but she could tell it was more a defensive action than actual disbelief of what she had said.

Before their conversation could continue, though, a young, skinny, towheaded, Russian boy dashed into the room. His face lit up into a large smile as he called out, "Ms. Irina." The words and the smile died abruptly when he saw Jack and his already pale skin was drained of color. The boy seemed to be frozen to the spot in fear. Clearly he knew it was neither wise nor safe to interrupt Irina when she was conferring with someone.

To Jack's surprise though, Irina didn't react in anger. Instead she held a welcoming arm out to the boy and said, "It's okay, Pter," in gentle Russian. Wrapping one arm around the boy's slim shoulder in a protective gesture, she started to walk out of the room, almost ignoring Jack until she reached the door.

"Feel free to stay here or look around, Jack. Dimitri is right outside the door if you need anything. I leave in two hours to return to Stockholm, with or without you. It's your decision.

_

The moment Irina stepped out of the room; she breathed a sigh of relief and then turned her attention to the boy who was now in front of her. "That was careless, Pter, and dangerous. I've taught you better than that."

The boy nodded, appropriately devastated by her rebuke. Privately though, Irina wanted to hug him again. She had badly needed an excuse to escape that room and Jack's presence. Pter had provided the perfect excuse. She had been too close to loosing control of her emotions in there and she couldn't afford that until her daughter was free and Sloane was dead. Her customary control and mental distance had been weakened because she truly felt comfortable and safe here. It wouldn't happen again, though, not while he was here, no matter how much she wanted it too.

"How have you been, Pter," she asked forcing those thoughts to the back of her mind.

"Excellent, Ma'am," he said and she listened as he excitedly told her about everything that he had recently learned and accomplished.

She had taken Pter in five years ago when she saw him begging-and picking pockets- while living on the streets outside of a hotel that had been a front for one of her money laundering operations. Something about the seven year old boy had caught her attention immediately. She had taken him in then, and arranged for his care and education, in a move that surprised even her.

The boy had quickly developed the habit of being at her side whenever it was safe. At first Irina had allowed him to stay simply as a reward for his newest accomplishments, but gradually she had come to look forward to spending time with him. Pter knew who she was and what she did, but she had managed to shield him from the dangers of that world as much as possible. She hadn't been able to protect Sydney.

She hadn't been able to stop feeling the pain of her separation from her daughter, but Pter's quiet, but cheerful presence had helped ease it a little. He could never replace Sydney, though, no one could. Today was the first time he had slipped up, Irina mused as she mentally took note of what he was saying for later thought. Pter's slip was understandable though. Between preparations of the Circumference device and her time in CIA custody, she hadn't seen him in almost a year. Which made what she had to do even harder. She had done it once before for the people she cared about, over a decade ago, and now she would do it again.

"Pter," she said quietly and as she had expected he fell immediately silent. "Come here," she added gently, knowing she only had a little more time before she had to leave.

When he sat down beside her on the bench she looked into his clever, young eyes. "You know I'm leaving again, Pter." He nodded. She knew he had his ways of knowing even if he hadn't heard her tell Jack. "I won't be back," she said bluntly, "and it's become too dangerous for me to continue caring for you. Too many people would kill you to get to me."

The devastating look of trust broken, marred his face for only a moment before shoved the emotions aside in a manner uncannily resembling Irina's. It almost brought tears to her eyes, both of pain and pride. Still she continued, "When you leave Dimitri will give you a quantity of untraceable money. What you do or where you go from here is your business and I want no knowledge of it." She smiled fondly at him. "I would advise you to use it to set up a new life for yourself, but it's sufficient to fund whatever you want to do."

Pter's look was one of interest. He would survive; he was like her in that. Rising and walking away as much of a good bye as she would allow herself already said, she stopped when she heard him call out. "Ms. Irina."

She turned back to look at him. "Yes, Pter," she asked patiently, although she knew she was running out of time.

"Thank you for this and," he looked as if he were considering whether to continue or not, but finally plowed ahead. "And you will not fail. One day your family will forgive you, if you let them. You are the master of deception, but all it takes is one moment, frozen in time, to show them the truth and they will forgive you."

Without a word, she walked over and kissed his cheeks and then walked away, amazed by the boy's perception and his thoughtfulness. When she joined Jack on the plane there was no trace of the tears that had graced her face. She was once again Irina Derevko, strong and ruthless, but something was different. In a way she had never expected, her investment had been paid off. Pter had reminded her of something she had forgotten and in doing so had given her a gift beyond value, a way to get her family back.


	5. Chapter 5

"No," the word was out of Jack's mouth almost before she had even finished speaking. He wasn't even sure why he said it; he just knew he couldn't allow it to happen. He watched as Irina's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"No, Jack? You of all people should know better than to try to tell me what to do."

Jack couldn't his grimace at both her reference to their life together and the memory of some of their spectacular disagreements. "It won't work, Irina," he said stating the logic behind his objection, despite the fact that it wasn't his real reasoning. "Sloane would never believe me," he finished.

"He knows you would do anything for Sydney and it shouldn't be that hard for him to believe that you would turn me over to him. You would probably just ask for tickets to my interrogation," she sneered.

Jack couldn't help but notice the sadness in her voice, when she said that, though. He had to be imagining things. If nothing else, the past twenty years should have taught him that Irina didn't care about him in the slightest. "How do I know you're not just luring me into a trap to turn me over to Sloane."

Irina rolled her eyes in frustration. She had almost forgotten that Jack was practically as stubborn as she was. "Honestly Jack if I was going to, I would have done it before now. Use logic, Jack, I'm telling the truth now."

"Don't tell me about honesty, Irina," he said indignantly, but she could tell it was more a defensive action than actual disbelief of what she had said.

Before their conversation could continue, though, a young, skinny, towheaded, Russian boy dashed into the room. His face lit up into a large smile as he called out, "Ms. Irina." The words and the smile died abruptly when he saw Jack and his already pale skin was drained of color. The boy seemed to be frozen to the spot in fear. Clearly he knew it was neither wise nor safe to interrupt Irina when she was conferring with someone.

To Jack's surprise though, Irina didn't react in anger. Instead she held a welcoming arm out to the boy and said, "It's okay, Pter," in gentle Russian. Wrapping one arm around the boy's slim shoulder in a protective gesture, she started to walk out of the room, almost ignoring Jack until she reached the door.

"Feel free to stay here or look around, Jack. Dimitri is right outside the door if you need anything. I leave in two hours to return to Stockholm, with or without you. It's your decision.

_

The moment Irina stepped out of the room; she breathed a sigh of relief and then turned her attention to the boy who was now in front of her. "That was careless, Pter, and dangerous. I've taught you better than that."

The boy nodded, appropriately devastated by her rebuke. Privately though, Irina wanted to hug him again. She had badly needed an excuse to escape that room and Jack's presence. Pter had provided the perfect excuse. She had been too close to loosing control of her emotions in there and she couldn't afford that until her daughter was free and Sloane was dead. Her customary control and mental distance had been weakened because she truly felt comfortable and safe here. It wouldn't happen again, though, not while he was here, no matter how much she wanted it too.

"How have you been, Pter," she asked forcing those thoughts to the back of her mind.

"Excellent, Ma'am," he said and she listened as he excitedly told her about everything that he had recently learned and accomplished.

She had taken Pter in five years ago when she saw him begging-and picking pockets- while living on the streets outside of a hotel that had been a front for one of her money laundering operations. Something about the seven year old boy had caught her attention immediately. She had taken him in then, and arranged for his care and education, in a move that surprised even her.

The boy had quickly developed the habit of being at her side whenever it was safe. At first Irina had allowed him to stay simply as a reward for his newest accomplishments, but gradually she had come to look forward to spending time with him. Pter knew who she was and what she did, but she had managed to shield him from the dangers of that world as much as possible. She hadn't been able to protect Sydney.

She hadn't been able to stop feeling the pain of her separation from her daughter, but Pter's quiet, but cheerful presence had helped ease it a little. He could never replace Sydney, though, no one could. Today was the first time he had slipped up, Irina mused as she mentally took note of what he was saying for later thought. Pter's slip was understandable though. Between preparations of the Circumference device and her time in CIA custody, she hadn't seen him in almost a year. Which made what she had to do even harder. She had done it once before for the people she cared about, over a decade ago, and now she would do it again.

"Pter," she said quietly and as she had expected he fell immediately silent. "Come here," she added gently, knowing she only had a little more time before she had to leave.

When he sat down beside her on the bench she looked into his clever, young eyes. "You know I'm leaving again, Pter." He nodded. She knew he had his ways of knowing even if he hadn't heard her tell Jack. "I won't be back," she said bluntly, "and it's become too dangerous for me to continue caring for you. Too many people would kill you to get to me."

The devastating look of trust broken, marred his face for only a moment before shoved the emotions aside in a manner uncannily resembling Irina's. It almost brought tears to her eyes, both of pain and pride. Still she continued, "When you leave Dimitri will give you a quantity of untraceable money. What you do or where you go from here is your business and I want no knowledge of it." She smiled fondly at him. "I would advise you to use it to set up a new life for yourself, but it's sufficient to fund whatever you want to do."

Pter's look was one of interest. He would survive; he was like her in that. Rising and walking away as much of a good bye as she would allow herself already said, she stopped when she heard him call out. "Ms. Irina."

She turned back to look at him. "Yes, Pter," she asked patiently, although she knew she was running out of time.

"Thank you for this and," he looked as if he were considering whether to continue or not, but finally plowed ahead. "And you will not fail. One day your family will forgive you, if you let them. You are the master of deception, but all it takes is one moment, frozen in time, to show them the truth and they will forgive you."

Without a word, she walked over and kissed his cheeks and then walked away, amazed by the boy's perception and his thoughtfulness. When she joined Jack on the plane there was no trace of the tears that had graced her face. She was once again Irina Derevko, strong and ruthless, but something was different. In a way she had never expected, her investment had been paid off. Pter had reminded her of something she had forgotten and in doing so had given her a gift beyond value, a way to get her family back.


	6. Chapter 6

Silence. For years after Laura Bristow's death, Irina had hated silence. It only provided her with time to think about the past and to regret the decisions she had made. There were days she regretted joining the KGB. When she was in an especially bitter mood she regretted the foolish decision she had made the very first day she had met Jack. The shock that went through her body the first time she saw him should have been more than enough warning that, the mission wasn't a good idea. Still her ambition had pushed her forward that day, and it would continue to do so for years to come, until the silences in her life turned from peaceful to painful.

It was why she had taken up meditation; to block out the memories and emotions. Today, even though Jack was still furious with her, Irina was once again comfortable with silence. That didn't mean however, that she wasn't about to break that silence. She and Jack had much to discuss before they reached Stockholm.

Jack, however, spoke up a moment before she did. "What is Sydney's condition? I believe you said Sloane drugged her?"

She nodded, "He's been using a prototype drug on her that his scientists just recently developed." Irina looked up, knowing how her next statement would affect Jack, but determined to remain in control of her emotions as she spoke. Shooting Sydney in Taipei was nothing compared to what Sloane was doing to her precious daughter. "The drug isn't a sedative. It allows the subject to remain fully alert, but it keeps them in a state of complete paralysis. Sloane knows that for Sydney that would be one of the worst things he could do to her." Irina tried to forget the look of terror in her daughter's eyes the last time she had seen her, but somehow she just couldn't. It was a look she suspected she might never forget.

Jack didn't respond, but she could see his knuckles go white as he gripped the arms of the seat tightly and directed his gaze out the window. A moment later he murmured something she didn't quite catch.

"What was that Jack?"

"Why didn't you just kill him?" He repeated louder, meeting her eyes with a challenge, the words hanging blatantly between them.

"I couldn't guarantee her safety," she said simply after a moment.

"You couldn't guarantee Sydney's safety, or you couldn't guarantee your own?" He asked harshly.

Irina moved so fast that Jack didn't even have a chance to react before she slapped him. Jack fingered his face and then to her shock and fury, he laughed. "I hope you weren't planning for us to have to disguise our appearances and sneak in somewhere, Irina. Because a man with a bold hand shaped bruise on his cheek will probably stand out."

Irina was so aggravated with him and furious with herself for being provoked like that, that she considered slapping him again. She settled for letting out a growl of annoyance and ignoring Jack as she stalked to the back of the airplane.

She settled into a meditation pose and concentrated on calming down. This was not going well. For all of her bravado, anger and defiance, she had been counting on Jack's help, his strength, to get her through this. She was more than willing to go through with this plan and to be given to Sloane by Jack in exchange for Sydney, but Arvin Sloane's care would not be pleasant. She wasn't naïve enough to believe that nothing would go wrong with this mission.

She breathed deeply, forcing down panic. She had been so casual with Jack when she had told him she had been a prisoner in Kashmir. The memory of that time could still wrap her in fear and haunt her dreams. For all of her discomfort in the CIA's custody it was like an insect bite compared to a large bullet wound. If Irina was forced to go through that again, well she was strong, but everyone, even her, had their breaking point.

_

Jack almost smiled. It seemed as if he had finally found a chink in Irina's armor. He sat there for a moment, enjoying her absence and thinking of ways to use her weakness against her. He'd always had a vindictive streak when it came to her. As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't angry about the information she had stolen, not really. He couldn't blame her for that, she was simply doing her job, like so many other spies, himself included. No, he blamed her for the death of Laura Bristow, the death of his happiness and the death of his daughter's chance for a happy childhood and now even adulthood.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable with this new line of thought Jack checked his watch. They had been flying for a while, thankfully and only had an hour or so left. Standing up, Jack noted that Irina seemed to have slipped from meditation to sleep as he stood up to stretch. Walking towards the front of the plane, Jack reacted instinctively when he heard a scream from behind him.

To his surprise he recognized it as Irina. It was only then that he realized she was dreaming. Not wanting to think about what Irina Derevko would consider a nightmare, Jack knelt down beside her ad said sharply, "Irina."

As he had half-expected, one of her fists flailed out towards him. Grateful for the fact that sleep had slowed her blow, Jack caught her fist and said lightly, "Are you trying to give me a matching bruise?"

But to his surprise, instead of laughing or reacting in anger, Irina reached out, her eyes still blurred with sleep and memories, to gently touch his cheek.

"I'm sorry I didn't keep her safe. I'm sorry you have to be here with me. Pter was right."

Surprising even himself, because he knew he would probably never get Irina to talk this freely again, Jack put a finger to her lips. In contrast to his gesture he said coolly, but not without sympathy, "Be quiet Irina. You had a nightmare. Save your confession or explanation until you mean them, not just because you're scared or confused."

He stood up and walked away, each step costing him more than he would have imagined. He couldn't believe what he had just done. Under normal circumstances he would have used any opportunity to get information from her. He had, in fact, been planning just that moments earlier. He just hadn't been able to. Perhaps Irina had been right after all, maybe he was just a fool.

_

Irina was confused by a flood of emotions. Fear had been dominant in her mind, when she had woken and there had been Jack. His reaction had surprised her. Twice in only a few hours. It was becoming a habit. She wasn't sure what she wanted now. Hitting him and kissing him both seemed like viable options at the moment. It was probably a good thing Jack had walked away. They had a mission after all and now it was time to focus on that mission. Sometime though, she would get back to Jack. Missions had been controlling her life for far too long.


	7. Chapter 7

They were the perfect couple, a wealthy, older American businessman and his still beautiful trophy wife. As their limousine came to a stop in front of one of the many skyscrapers in the respectable financial district of Stockholm, a building bearing the name of an international bank came into view. Jack and Irina, however, were both well aware of the fact that it was really a front for Arvin Sloane's operations.

Jack was the first to step out of the limousine, when the driver opened the door. He stepped out and glanced casually around, noting the location of the obvious security as he buttoned his suit jacket. Turning back to the car, he offered Irina a hand out of the car.

"Are you ready, Dear," he asked casually.

"Of course, Sweetheart," she replied easily as she stood, brushing his cheek with a loving kiss as she straightened up.

He shut the door and placed one hand at the small of her back to guide her towards the entrance. They were all the gestures of a couple madly in love and totally at ease with one another. Jack allowed himself a smile as they approached the reception desk. Not only was everything going as they had planned, but he was able to watch Irina in action. He had seen her before on missions, but now, it was as if her semi-break down on the plane had allowed him to tell the difference between the real Irina and the identity she was portraying.

It was breathtaking. Still he couldn't keep the sarcasm and bitterness out of his voice as he leaned down the mere inches necessary to bring his mouth next to her ear. "You should have been an actress, Irina," he observed, unable to forget that she had duped him for over a decade, no matter how much he respected her skills. To anyone walking by however, it would have looked as if he was simply whispering sweet nothings into her ear. "It's a safer career with a relatively similar pay scale."

To his surprise Irina responded as if it was the compliment it seemed to be, not the verbal jag they both knew it was. "Why thank you, Jack, but then I would never have met you."

Her response succeeded in silencing him, for the moment at least. It wasn't the response that he had expected. He didn't have time at that moment however, to mull over her words in an attempt to discern what she really meant. They were already at the receptionist desk, where the young woman was asking them in accented English, how she could help them.

"We're here to see Arvin Sloane," Jack said abruptly, looking up to gaze fully at the security camera in the corner that was monitoring their area.

"I'm afraid there is no one here by that name," she said and Jack believed her or at least believed that she was telling the truth as far as she knew it.

Still it didn't really matter what she thought as long as someone with more knowledge than her was watching. Fortunately everything was going as planned because before they could speak again, the security guards they had noticed on their way in began to converge on them.

Within moments, Jack and Irina had been ushered into an elevator and delivered to a small room. Neither spoke as they waited. This mission was dangerous, but neither of them were inclined to talk on the off chance of revealing something to Sloane. No, the success of this mission depended largely upon the outcome of their meeting with Sloane. If it went as planned, then Sydney at least would be free. If they weren't successful then they would likely be killed or at least joining their daughter in Sloane's custody.

"Well, well, Jack and Irina. I would say it was a surprise, Jack, but I've been expecting you." Arvin Sloane's condescending voice broke the room's silence and Jack was glad that for the moment his back was to the man that had done so much to hurt his daughter, because all he wanted to do at the moment was kill him.

"I am a little surprised Irina brought you here though. I was under the impression that the two of you weren't on speaking terms."

"Actually that's where you're wrong, Arvin," Jack said turning to face Sloane, and wrapping a casual arm around Irina's waist at the same time. "Irina didn't bring me here, I brought her here." Jack looked down at his wife with an adoring smile, smile that quickly changed from adoring to vicious as he spoke. "You see, Arvin," he said slowly, "My gullible wife here, actually thought I would join forces with her to free Sydney."

Before Jack had finished speaking, Irina had spun around, fury and hurt flashing in her eyes as she aimed a backhanded blow at his head. "You bastard!"

"Such language, Irina," Sloane said calmly, watching with interest as Jack grabbed her arm and pinned it behind her. After a few more moments of struggle Jack managed to subdue Irina for the moment, although both men suspected that she was simply biding her time.

"I have a proposal for you, Sloane," Jack said harshly. "Irina in exchange for Sydney. You get to keep your secrets safe by insuring Irina's silence and I get what I want, Sydney."

The cold look in Sloane's eyes suggested that he was considering it as Jack waited impatiently for his response. "How is giving up Sydney to my benefit?"

Jack sighed. "Arvin, I no longer work for you, so simply put. I. Don't. care. ." He paused. "However, I will point out that if you accept this deal, I won't be forced to kill you for kidnapping my daughter and obviously I won't put any effort into finding Irina as I would Sydney. Also we both know that Irina is the person referred to in the prophecy, not Sydney."

Arvin smiled ominously, seeming to not be disturbed at all by Jack's death threats. "You were always an excellent tactical planner. Very well, Jack I will consider your proposal. However, I'm sure you will understand if I have to take a few precautions."

The word "precautions" set off alarm bells in both Jack and Irina's heads and instantly both of them were moving quickly to insure their own safety. Hindered by the others close presence though, both of them were too slow and were subdued with some assistance from the clubs and tazers that had suddenly materialized in the guards hands. The last thing Jack, head and body pressed painfully into the floor, saw before loosing consciousness was the look of panic mixed with impotent fury in Irina's eyes that somehow seemed to call out to him for help.


	8. Chapter 8

Since she had joined Sd-6, Sydney Bristow had been in more dangerous situations than she could possibly remember. She had been shot, knifed, tasered, fallen from great heights and on a few occasions that she whole heartedly wished she could forget, captured and tortured. This, however, had to be the worst situation she had ended up in so far.

She had spent most of her first day in absolute panic and terror, mixed with impotent fury, before she had managed to calm down enough to assess the situation. As far as she could tell she was fine. Except, of course, for the fact that she couldn't move any part of her body below her neck. Thanks, to Sloane's gloating, she now knew that she had been drugged. She was still furious, though. Furious that she had been captured and furious that she hadn't managed to thwart Sloane.

The silence and forced inactivity were beginning to get to her, though. She didn't even have the option of trying to plan an escape because she couldn't even move. So, when she heard the fall of multiple footsteps marching down the corridor towards the door to the room where she was confined, she turned her head as much as she could to see what was going on. She listened as the multiple locks on the door were released and tensed as she waited for Soane to enter.

To her surprise, when the door opened it only revealed several of the rent- a-thugs that Sloane populated his bases with. The sarcastic, baiting comment on the tip of her tongue, died as she saw the person who was being dragged into the room. "Dad?"

She didn't really expect a reply; Jack Bristow was obviously unconscious. She watched them for a moment and then looked at the second group of people waiting outside the door. With her father present, she half-expected the other figure to be Vaughn or Dixon. So, when she saw who it really was, she gasped in confusion, "Mom?"

Her mind immediately went into overdrive as she absorbed her mother's unconscious figure. Sydney shook her head as much as she was able to in a futile gesture to gain clarity of thought. If Irina was here like this with her father, she must have switched sides again, or she was at least pretending to have switched sides. The infinitely confusing possibilities were beginning to give her a headache. The burly men ignored her as they roughly strapped her parents to the nearby steel tables that were identical to her own.

With no way to tell time, Sydney wasn't sure how long it took for Jack to begin to show signs that he was coming around. It seemed like forever to her as she watched and waited. The moment his eyes flickered open, she said quickly, "Dad!"

Jack turned as much as he could within his restraints, in his still groggy condition. "Sydney," he questioned, for once his relief at seeing his daughter relatively unharmed clearly evident on his face. "Are you all right," he asked.

"Just a little paralyzed," she tried to joke, but to her surprise and somewhat horror she felt tears begin to prick her eyes. She was used to taking care of herself, both in her life and on her missions and while they were still in a very dangerous situation, it was incredibly reassuring to know her father was there.

"It's okay, Sydney, we will get out of here," he said with as much reassurance as he could muster.

"Of course, Dad," she answered, putting as much confidence into her voice as she could while still almost fully paralyzed, trying to make herself sound as if she really had no doubts at all about that fact.

He gave her a reassuring nod and then began to carefully examine as much of the room as he could see from his present position.

"Mom's on your other side." She didn't even try to keep the anger she was feeling towards her mother out of her voice.

Jack glanced at Irina and then turned his attention back to Sydney. "She approached me about where to find you, you know," Jack said, not quite clear on why he was defending Irina. "She told me where you were and came with me to get you out." Jack carefully omitted the part where he had betrayed Irina to Sloane. Despite her anger with her mother, he didn't think that Sydney would like that very much and he couldn't exactly explain their real plan to her.

Fortunately it seemed that Sydney hadn't been paying that close of attention to what he was saying, to caught up in her own thoughts to listen to him. "I should have shot her while I had the chance. Then none of us would be here."

Looking at his daughter lying there and seeing the self-reproachful look on her face, Jack almost wished that he had never joined the CIA, heard of Laura Bristow, or headed Project Christmas, not if this was the price, Sydney had to pay. "Sydney, not shooting your mother is nothing to be ashamed of."

She looked at him as if he had suddenly sprouted horns or tentacles out of his head. "Dad, she shot me! And she let Sloane capture me!"

Jack forced himself not to smile, despite the seriousness of the situation, at how much she sounded like a whiney child.

"She betrayed us and she used us," Sydney continued.

Jack sighed. Sydney was an amazing agent, but sometimes he forgot how young she was and how much she had yet to understand. Despite his malicious feelings for Irina, Jack understood her motivations. She was a spy. It had been her job, just like it had been Sydney's job to steal people's secrets from the many times, even from people that trusted her in some small or large way. Sometimes his daughter seemed to forget that. It was a form of hypocrisy that allowed agents to function at their best and perform jobs that comprised a person's morals and ethics. It did make trust a rather large issue, but that too was part of the job. He was spared the need for comment, however when Irina woke.

"Jack," was the first word out of her mouth, quickly followed by, "You Bastard!"

He and Irina had agreed on their plan before hand and he had executed it to perfection, but Jack was still unsure whether she was referring to him or Sloane. "It's good to see you too, Irina," he said dryly.

Sydney didn't acknowledge her mother's return to consciousness or her colorful comment, but Jack noticed the slight hitch in Irina's breathing when she noticed her daughter's presence. "Hello, Sweetheart," she said quietly.

Irina didn't even flinch when Sydney turned her head away. Instead, she struggled with her restraints for a moment in an effort to raise herself up off of the table as much as possible to get a better view of Sydney. "Sydney," she tried again to catch her daughter's attention. Her daughter didn't respond or even turn her head, but somehow, Irina still managed to get the impression that if she could have moved Sydney would have shot her a very rude gesture.

Of course, Irina with her famous or at least infamous stubbornness wasn't about to give up. Not now, not when this might be her last chance to talk to Sydney like this. And after all she had a captive audience, literally.

"Sydney," she started with more determination this time, "I know you don't want to listen to me especially not now, but I need you to know that I love you."

"Why so that you can manipulate me better?" Sydney asked sarcastically.

Irina almost smiled; at least it proved that she was listening. "No, Sweetheart, because I might not get another chance to tell you and I didn't want to add that to my list of regrets." Irina was unable to stop her eyes from flicking to Jack as she said that. She was surprised to find him looking steadily back at her and quickly turned her attention back to their daughter.

She had finally turned to look at her mother, but anger still burned brilliantly in her eyes. "You sure have a funny way of showing it. Most mother/daughter events don't involve being paralyzed or captured by a power hungry psychopath."

"I know," Irina admitted and to everyone's shock, she added, "and I'm sorry about that. I know it can't change or make up for anything I've done in the past, but I did bring your father here. Some things I won't apologize for. I won't apologize for keeping you and your father safe as best as I could, no matter what methods I used."

Sydney remained quiet this time and for the first time, Irina began to hope- a habit she had forbad herself years ago- that Sydney was accepting at least a little bit of what she was saying.

"I know it seemed like I betrayed you and," she added carefully, "your father after the opp. in Panama, but in my own way I've been helping you and working inside Sloane's operation to hinder him as much as I can."

Irina was well aware of the fact that the room was monitored. In fact, she was counting on that fact. She had an ulterior motive beyond talking to Sydney. This confession could serve to reinforce her betrayal of Sloane and make Jack's offer more appealing.

Sydney suddenly seemed to develop a deep interest in a spot on the ceiling and she seemed to be lost in contemplation. Then, she looked back at Irina, locking eyes with her mother in a way that was practically a challenge. "Vaughn and I were supposed to meet his mother for dinner when I got back from this opp."

Irina was at a loss for words. There was nothing she could say. She had been responsible for the death of William Vaughn and she freely admitted it. As she lay back in defeat she asked quietly, "What do you want me to say, Sydney? William Vaughn's death is my fault. I met with him one day at a safe house where he had been stationed with your father. Jack had told me where it was in case I need to get a hold of him in an emergency. You'd had a very severe case of chicken pox, when he was first assigned there," she explained. Pausing she seemed to be almost visually trying to collect her emotions and Sydney realized for the first time, that telling this story was truly having an effect on her mother. Was it even possible that Irina Derevko was feeling remorse?

"Your father had left on a mission and I wanted to know when he would be back. So, it is my fault, that with the way I had been acting the KGB, they thought I was betraying them. That I was a double agent and William was my handler." She shrugged as best as she could, "I couldn't convince them it was an innocent conversation. He was killed and I was pulled out a few months later."

Sydney was silent. Her own failures as an agent and the ways they had hurt the people she cared about, haunting her. Irina was too lost in her thoughts, to notice though. A man had died because of one careless trip. Because she wanted to know when her husband would be home, not to steal information from him, but simply to see him and be with him again. She could be ruthless, but even the great Irina Derevko had limits and the death of William Vaughn was just a waste.

"Mom," she heard Sydney say softly, "I believe you."


	9. Chapter 9

The locks to their cell door clicked noisily and the door slid open, all of it somehow much louder than usual in the more or less comfortable silence that had fallen in the room since Sydney and Irina's emotional conversation.

"Well, wasn't that a touching family conversation," Arvin Sloane said as he walked into the room, his usual nice act gone for the moment. "To bad it's not real isn't it, Sydney?" he asked with something that sounded like sympathy and only made Sydney furious and nauseous, simultaneously.

Involuntarily her eyes flickered to her mother and then she fixed them steadily back on Sloane. Their trust was still fragile, but she would trust her mother, at least until she had better proof than Sloane's off hand dig.

"You mistake me, Sydney," he said, noticing her glance, "It's not you mother who did the betraying this time, but your father."

Sydney blinked in shock, but that was her only involuntary reaction. Despite the fact that her mind was shocked and confused and she desperately wanted to demand and explanation from her father, she wouldn't give Sloane the satisfaction of seeing her reaction.

"Why are you here, Arvin," broke in Jack, "If you're not going to interrogate us, I would appreciate it if you left. I've been catching up on my sleep."

"This is not a game, Jack," Sloane said calmly, with the air of a patient parent rebuking an errant child.

"Everything is a game, Arvin," rebuked Irina, speaking for the first time since he had come in. "The only question is what you're playing for."

"You don't already know, Irina, I thought you would have guessed by now." He sighed, as if disappointed and turned back to face Sydney. He smiled at her kindly and if someone who was unaware of the current conditions had simply looked at he and Sydney, they might have thought him a kindly teacher looking at his favorite protégé. "Despite your betrayal Sydney, and that of your father and mother for that matter, I have decided to accept the deal that Jack presented me, with a few of my own modifications, of course."

He shook his head, "I'm agreeing to this because I do not wish to hurt you, unless you cross me or my organization. It would also be beneficial for me to release you and your parents, so that for a time the CIA would cease to focus so intently on me. However, as much as it would be to my advantage, I fear I cannot release both of your parents. Despite their malicious feelings for one another, their combined knowledge might provide the CIA with enough information to become a nuisance."

He paused dramatically and Sydney felt her stomach clench. Sloane's little speech was infuriating and not what she had been expecting, although she knew he had another motive. He wouldn't be Arvin Sloane if he didn't.

"I thought Sydney, that I would leave the final decision to you. Decide which of your parents will go with you."


	10. Chapter 10

Choose between her parents...

Sydney lay in silence as Sloane walked out of the room with a smirk on his face. This couldn't be happening, but, of course, like everything else in her life it was. Now all she could do was deal with it.

Both of her parents were silent and she could feel the tension in the room ratcheting up notch by notch. As her mother had said, this was all a game. She just had to figure out what the game was and how to ensure that Sloane would not win.

Obviously Sloane had his own agenda in all of this and his own reasons for doing this. As for her parents, well who could really tell what their motivations were at this point. Sometimes it seemed as if they were loyal only to themselves and at other times it looked as if they were protecting her. Sometime they worked with other organizations to get what they wanted; it forced her to wonder if her parents even knew who they were truly working for in the end.

Still, there was a simple solution for this, simple for her at least, and she was more than willing to take it. The CIA chain of command. It wasn't terribly relevant in this discussion, but her father was her superior and he appeared to know more about this situation than she did. And, despite Sloane's comments about a betrayal on her father's part, her instincts were telling her to trust him. After all the ability to make split second decisions and follow her intuition and instincts to the right conclusion was what made her one of the CIA's best agents.

"Dad," she said softly, in a voice that seemed at once, not at all like her, and more like her than she had been since she was six years old, "Tell me what to do." She took a deep breath, "I'm not going to pretend I understand your motives, especially when it comes to Mom, but if nothing else I trust you as a CIA officer to make the right tactical decision for the situation."

Jack looked at his daughter and for a moment, surprise could be seen behind his usually blank face. His daughter's decision hadn't been what he had expected. He was proud of her for that; it would make whatever Sloane was planning to do more difficult.

He nodded curtly to her to let her know that he was thinking. He already knew what he would be telling Sydney in just a moment, but he wanted a little bit more time to think. If nothing else that would delay whatever plans Sloane had for a moment or two longer. No, the choice between himself or Irina going with Sydney was an easy one to make for both professional, and surprisingly enough, personal reasons.

Irina.

He had worked with Sloane for over twenty years. Irina was a new and more valuable resource with an entirely different organization of people and intelligence at her fingertips. And as much at it perplexed and angered him to admit it, he didn't want to see Irina hurt, at least not by Arvin Sloane. His emotions toward her were too deeply buried and too complex to simply be written off as hate. Also, first and foremost, above all of his other reasons was the fact that if he told Sydney to take Irina with her it would place Irina in the uncomfortable position of owing him, at the very least one small favor. It would irritate her to no end.

His thoughts only reassured him or his original decision, though. "Sydney, I appreciate the trust you're placing in me, but this is a decision that you should make."

"Okay, Dad," she said after a moment. She looked back and forth between her parents and then her eyes slipped shut as if she was deep in thought.

"Dad," she said after a long pause, "I know we haven't always had gotten along or had the best relationship, but I need to know something." She had been avoiding his eyes up to that point, but suddenly she looked up and locked eyes with him.

What Jack saw there filled him with sudden pride at the woman his daughter had become without the guidance of either of her parents. It was a mixture of vulnerability and complete confidence that reassured him and made him sad that he hadn't been able to protect her from this life.

"I know," Sydney continued, "that you love me."

He was surprised at her words. She was right, though, more so than he had been able to show her in years.

"But I need to know if you trust me?"

Looking at his daughter, Jack experienced a pang of hurt that she would even have to ask that, although he knew she truly had ample reason to wonder. He certainly hadn't been the best father, but at least he could do this one small thing for her.

"Sydney," he chose his words carefully, "I've made many decisions in my life," he couldn't resist a glance at Irina, but she was simply watching them with intense concentration, "and I've regretted many of them, but never doubt that I trust you." He paused and in a very un-Jack Bristow like way he added gruffly, but with genuine emotion, "I'm sorry if I ever gave you any reason to doubt that as you grew up."

The tear that rolled down his daughter cheek was real and Jack wished more than anything that he could simply go and give her a hug like he had comforted her as a child, and make everything okay.

Sydney blinked fiercely and then turned defiantly towards the room's most visible security camera. "Sloane, I've made my decision." - -

She wasn't sure where they were now. After she had made her decision, they had been knocked unconscious and woken up an indeterminate amount of time later, here, wherever that was. Her arms had been bound behind her back and she could almost feel less and less blood flowing to her fingertips as the restraints cut into her wrists. But at least she was no longer paralyzed and she was walking down the hallway at gun point under her own power.

She focused momentarily, on counting her footsteps as she walked, the blindfold covering her eyes, blocking her sight effectively as she struggled not to focus on the fact that it was Sloane's arm that was gently leading her, or at least it had been before she aimed a very powerful kick at him. She suspected he had been replaced by one of his thugs and of course, she had paid for that move. Still, his grunt of pain had made it all worth it.

Suddenly everything including whatever she was walking on shook unsteadily. It only took her a moment to link that with the constant background noise to realize that they were on a boat or airplane or some kind. The moment she felt the change in air pressure, Sydney knew which one it was.

She didn't really start to truly feel the first tingles of fear or adrenaline, though, until she heard Sloane say, "Good bye, Sydney, I hope you live to determine whether or not you regret your decision."

She tensed sensing what was about to happen, but there was nothing she could do she felt another person slam into her. There was nothing either of them could do as they tumbled out of the airplane and left to the unforgiving, uncaring hands of gravity.


	11. Chapter 11

The first thing her adrenaline filled brain registered was the loosely tied blindfold being ripped off of by the air resistance. She had to admit she was grateful that at least she could see, even if her hands were tied and she was in free fall several thousand feet above the Earth. She hadn't exactly expected Sloane to free them with no precautions on his part, but this was a bit drastic. It would have been quicker just to shoot them.

Something slammed into her from above her and she twisted her head around to see her mother holding on to her from behind her. Quickly, before Irina could lose her grip Sydney twisted around and wrapped her legs around her mother and leaned in closer to her.

"Any suggestions," she yelled, screaming to be heard over the rush of air.

"Hold on," was the extent of Irina's reply, and let go of Sydney with one arm. Seconds later the hiss and familiar harsh jerk of a parachute opening reassured her that for the next few moments at least everything would be all right. Their descent wasn't exactly a peaceful glide and they hit the ground hard, harder than they should have. But, after all the parachute was only designed for the weight of one person, not two.

Sydney untangled herself from her mother and the parachute cords and rolled to her feet. "Where did you get that," she demanded, surprised but definitely not unhappy about that.

"I have my sources," Irina replied vaguely, causing Sydney to roll her eyes.

Now that she was on the ground, she made quick work or her restraints, only to look around and find herself in harsh inhospitable terrain. The cold she had only just started noticing was already well on its way to being unbearable.

"Any ideas about where we are?" Sydney asked rhetorically as she scanned the barren terrain.

Irina pointed at an unpretentious point on the horizon. "I saw a small town over in that direction. We can find out more when we get there, but we need to leave now. I don't trust Arvin."

Sydney didn't protest and began to jog along side her mother. Neither said much. There wasn't really much to say. Thoughts of Jack and what Sloane might be doing to him at that very moment danced at the back of both of their minds. They had been traveling along steadily for several minutes before Sydney looked over at her mother.

"Do you think he'll kill Dad?"

The question surprised Irina, not only that Sydney would actually voice it, but the way that it mirrored her own thoughts. She had tried to force the fact that she had left Jack behind to the back of her mind. It was supposed to have been the other way around, but Sydney had made that decision. She owed Jack now more than ever and once again she had left him worse off than before she had entered his life.

She struggled to ignore the look of almost childlike vulnerability on her daughter's face. It struck as she started to respond that the way she felt then, seeing her daughter like that was the same way Jack must have felt twenty years earlier. It was a sobering thought and one she chose not to dwell on.

"No, Sydney," she said hoping that she wasn't lying to her or giving her a false sense of hope, "If Arvin had wanted to kill Jack, he would have killed all three of us. He will probably try to recruit Jack or torture him for information."

They continued to jog on in silence until it threatened to grow unbearable. Irina's voice when she spoke, was unexpected and almost through Sydney off balance. "Why didn't you see that town?" Her voice was unforgiving and Sydney knew why. If she had been alone she could have started wandering in the opposite direction and even gotten further lost, possibly getting herself killed because of that one error.

Still she reacted with defensive sarcasm. "I'm sorry, I was a little bit occupied with trying not to fall from a deadly height to pay attention to my surroundings. I'll try to do better next time."

"See that you do," Irina said seriously, but she could only maintain that imperious façade for a moment before she joined her daughter in laughter. But even their laughter had a brittle edge to it, that couldn't be changed by a moment of happiness.

There was a question that was weighing on Irina's mind and it had to be answered before they reached the town. It would decide the fate of this mission, what they would do next and what would happen to Jack, as well. It would all depend on how Sydney answered her next question. "Will you call the CIA and ask them to retrieve you and one of their most wanted terrorists when we get to this town?"

\- -

To Irina's surprise Sydney's steps didn't even falter and she hardly looked at her mother. Finally she stopped running, forcing Irina to stop, too. She looked seriously into her mother's eyes. It was like a warped mirror image of the confrontation that had started this whole mess.

Mother and daughter were locked in a stare, surrounded this time by wide open space instead of enclosed in a tunnel. The intensity of their confrontation hadn't lessened in the slightest, only the nature of it had changed.

Sydney's stare was hard and searching. She would not back down. "Why shouldn't I," she asked with an unmistakable air of challenge.

It wasn't the question Irina had been expecting. Sydney had always been very concerned about doing the right thing, which in this case would be to turn her over to the CIA. Her question also forced Irina to look at her own motivations. She had spent more than twenty years trying to forget her greatest failure as a KGB officer and her greatest accomplishment as a woman, falling in love with Jack Bristow. Some days she thought she had been too successful at forgetting. She found it hard at times to acknowledge that fact to herself, and even harder still to admit it to Sydney or to show it to Jack.

"Because I want to find Jack just as much as you do. As hard as you or Jack might find it to believe, I do love him. I love both of you."

Sydney nodded, seemingly satisfied for the moment. "I'm sure you have ways of getting the information and gear we'll need to rescue him."

If Irina was surprised at the way Sydney ignored her confession she didn't show it. "Of course," she replied, injecting her voice with confidence that she hoped would reassure her daughter.

The next few hours were filled with long stretches of running broken up by moments of rest. Just when the distance was beginning to seem infinite, the outskirts of the town and the road leading up to it came into sight. They slowed to a walk and made their way into the town easily, searching as they walked for any clue about their location. In ten minutes of walking they had managed to get to the large outdoor market at the center of town and learned if not specifically where they were, at least the country.

"Well you should be right at home," Sydney shot at her mother as they listened to the musical garble of the town people interacting in rapid Russian and took in the signs all around them, written in Cyrillic.

"Yes," Irina replied sounding slightly distracted, "but at least it will make contacting my contacts easier." She looked back at her daughter and shot her an appraising glance. "Do you speak Russian?" When Sydney was a small child, Irina had so wished she could teach her daughter Russian, but that would have been unexplainable given her cover. Somehow not being able to give her daughter even that small piece of her own culture had been heartbreaking. Now, she hoped Sydney knew it for much more practical reasons. It would make them much less noticeable in this small town where everyone spoke it.

"Of course," answered Sydney and it took Irina just a moment to realize that Sydney had just demonstrated that for her. She had even managed it without a noticeable accent. Impressive.

As they threaded their way through the streets, Irina looked back at her daughter. It felt good, but slightly strange to work with Sydney like this. So far Sydney had trusted her, that in itself was an amazing start and it could prove to be very helpful in the future, should they almost inevitably find themselves temporarily on different sides.

In reality Irina was trying to use all of these thoughts to keep from thinking about what was really puzzling her. Sydney's decision to free her had been a surprise and it had been even more disconcerting to see the brief look of approval in Jack's eyes before she had been knocked unconscious like her daughter.

\- -

The town was small but it did boast one small inn. It took Irina almost an hour to persuade the stingy inn keeper to allow her to use the phone and Sydney was almost afraid Irina was about to resort to more forceful forms of persuasion when the man finally relented.

After a short conversation Irina handed the phone back to the man and gestured for him to put it to his ear. Sydney watched as the man paled and began to look more and more frightened. When he hung up the phone he was much more helpful. They had a room within minutes and free run of his establishment. He was almost tripping over his own feet to be helpful.

Sydney had to wonder who it was on the phone that would cause the man to have such a drastic reaction. She waited until he had left to ask, "Who was that, the person on the phone?"

Her tone was harsher and more suspicious than she had meant it to be, but she still had trouble totally trusting her mother.

Irina sat down on the bed across from her and turned her gaze on her daughter. Despite her confidence and determination, Sydney felt herself start to shrink back like she was six years old again. Only Irina could do that to her.

"It was one of my former employees. I can't tell you his name of course, but he worked for me as an agent inside the official Russian Intelligence Agency. He owed me a favor and chose to repay it by ensuring that the man will let us stay here for the night. By tomorrow we'll have the supplies we need to move on. To begin work on finding Jack," the reluctance in Irina's voice to add that last part worried Sydney more than she wanted to admit.

Instead of voicing her concern, Sydney chose that moment to ask about something else that she had been thinking about. "Are you safe here, Mom?"

Irina looked up from her survey of the room and raised a curious eyebrow at her daughter. "I think we're safe enough here for the moment."

"That's not what I meant. Are you wanted by Russian authorities?"

"They didn't let me out of Kashmir, Sydney, but no, I'm really in no more danger here than you are. It's more practical, safer and more profitable for them to ignore me and my activities."

Sydney shook her head, too tired to worry that her questions were tumbling out of her mouth without much mental censoring, something that could be very dangerous to someone in her line of work. However, after being paralyzed and thrown out of a plane without a parachute, she didn't really care that much, "How did you do it," she asked. "How did you spend over a decade pretending to be a teacher and a happily domesticate wife?"

Irina looked at her daughter appraisingly, "Do you want to know the truth or would you prefer a white lie?"

Sydney could almost feel Irina distancing herself from the situation and she was flooded with anger. She got more than enough emotional distance from her father, although he was getting better about that. "Try the truth, it should be a nice change."

Irina seemed to not even notice her sarcasm. She looked as if she were looking beyond the room almost as if she could see the past before her. It was a look the Sydney had never seen her mother wear before. "You have to realize, Sydney, that it was my first mission. If I was caught I didn't know enough to be worth extraction. I was on my own in a country I had been taught to hate, filled with people I had been led to believe were the devil incarnate. My only contact with my former life was my handler, whom I detested."

She looked her daughter in the eyes, "I'm sure you've flirted with men who repulsed you for information, but that was only for a short time. This mission was on a permanent basis." She seemed to look past her daughter for a moment and then regained her focus. "I didn't really know Jack back then. All he was to me was the enemy."

A knock on the door interrupted her tale and Sydney started as if coming out of a trance.

"Yes," Irina demanded, annoyed at the interruption. A female voice, whom Sydney assumed belonged to the innkeeper's wife announced that dinner was ready, effectively ending Irina's confession for the time being.

Dinner was surreal. No one but the innkeeper knew who Irina was and they put on the perfect mother/ daughter act. Sydney watched without seeming to as Irina relaxed and seemed to enjoy the food and the people. She knew she was the only one, though, that could see the lines of tension in Irina's movements even though she was carefully masking it. She was obviously no less worried about Jack than Sydney, despite her apparent patience with the situation.

After the meal, Sydney could barely contain her own impatience. Usually when she felt like this back in L.A. she went for a long run or found Francie and went to a club for a long night of dancing. The first option wouldn't be appropriate for her cover here and the second wasn't even possible. Instead she went back up to their room and did push ups, sit ups, and as many other exercises as she could think of to wear herself out.

Irina watched her carefully from her own bed, but didn't seem inclined to comment or finish their conversation from earlier. Shortly after dark fell, the electricity was cut and total darkness fell. Neither reacted, the innkeeper had warned them that it was a daily occurrence used to save electricity in the small town.

Given the mood that her mother seemed to be in at the moment, it seemed appropriate to Sydney that she was now in the dark literally as well as metaphorically. Hours later, she sat staring out of the room's small window, the nightmares that had haunted her, keeping her from sleep, despite her exhaustion. She heard a noise from her mother's side of the room. She ignored it, but grew more and more worried as she heard the panic creeping into Irina's dreaming voice.

"Mom," she said softly, hoping that would be enough to wake her mother from whatever nightmarish situation she was reliving in her dreams. It wasn't. Sydney had known and even slept with a few fellow agents and she knew that almost all of them had nightmares about some of the things that they had seen or done. Something told her, though, that waking Irina wouldn't be so simple.

\- -

Jack gritted his teeth against the pain blossoming in various places around his body. If this was how Arvin tried to convince a former friend to join him, then he would hate to see what he did to an actual enemy. Actually Jack knew, he had been required to execute those duties for Arvin Sloane more times than he cared to remember.

He had been both surprised and proud of the choice Sydney had made. She had stated her choice firmly to Sloane when he reentered the room, but kept her eyes locked with Jack's the entire time. Jack wished he could smile or at least give Sydney the smallest sign of encouragement that he could. That wasn't possible though, and he wasn't prepared to risk Arvin's deal with one small gesture.

Instead, he willed Sydney to read his approval in his gaze. He had struggled against his restraints in anger and frustration as Sydney was knocked unconscious. Irina though she remained calm, looked equally furious in her deceptive ruthless way.

"I'll take care of her, Jack," She had whispered before they had gotten to her as well. He did find her promise comforting to some degree. Irina seemed very protective of Sydney and if she was telling the truth about her feelings for their daughter then no force on Earth could protect the person who hurt Sydney, from Irina.

It wasn't other people that Jack was worried about, though. Despite the feelings Jack was beginning to suspect he had for Irina, not Laura, he still didn't trust her completely. She could be deadly, ruthless and merciless. Jack just hoped she wouldn't destroy Sydney.

He had been left alone with his thoughts for hours before Arvin Sloane returned. He had wasted quite a bit of time trying the old friend routine on Jack before he had proceeded to the more traditional methods of interrogations. So far as much as any other time when he was in Sloane's custody, Jack hadn't been in any mortal danger, simply quite a bit of pain. This pain Jack could handle. He had been called upon to prove this many times in the past and once again more recently in the hands of Geiger. But there was a point past which a man couldn't hold out and that was what worried him. Even he had a breaking point and if he was in Arvin's custody long enough, that point would be found.

\- -

Expecting a somewhat violent reaction, Sydney reached out carefully to touch her mother's shoulder to wake her. Instead her mother froze and her eyes flew open.

Irina seemed slightly disoriented for a moment and then asked, "Sydney?"

"It looked like you were having a nightmare," she explained hesitantly.

Irina nodded, but seemed more concerned in noticing what Sydney's body language told her that her daughter did not. Brushing off the lingering emotions with the discipline of a lifetime of nightmares, she raised an appraising eyebrow at Sydney, even though she knew she couldn't see it in the dark. "It seems like I wasn't the only one," she stated carefully.

Sydney stepped back from her mother, both mentally and physically and retreated to her own small bed. She didn't respond and Irina felt irrational worry swell within her. She had missed the greater part of Sydney's childhood and teenage years. She had missed all of the little, normal, but worrisome, incidents that were all apart of a mother's life as her child grew up. She had almost forgotten what these surges of maternal worry were like and they proved to be all the more distraction now that it was more normal for Sydney to be in mortal danger, than not.

"Sydney," she asked quietly, unsure if she would even respond. Her daughter had been acting more and more like her father, lately, and that was a good thing, in moderation. "Are you all right?"

Her response wasn't angry or defensive as Irina had half expected. "For years as a child, I hated water."

"I don't remember that," Irina said softly, wondering how she could have forgotten such an obviously important detail and then wished she could take the words back as she realized the significance of what Sydney had said. She had hated water because she thought her mother had drowned in a car accident.

"Sydney," she started to say, but her daughter cut her off.

"It almost got me killed on my second mission. I was in Paris, my partner and I were trapped in the basement and the only way out without getting shot to shreds by the guys above us was to swim out through a tunnel. I was so afraid, I almost didn't do it."

"You made it out," Irina said, for once stating the obvious.

"It didn't bother me again until just this last year," Sydney explained flatly. "I thought I had watched Vaughn drown in front of me. The nightmares came back after that."

"In Taipei?" Irina questioned.

"Yes."

"Sydney," Irina said slowly, methodically, "I know there is no way that I can apologize for the pain that I've caused you. But I do wish very much that our meeting in Taipei wasn't our first meeting since you discovered that I was alive."

Irina's explanation was cut off as the door exploded inward. The blast in the darkness momentarily blinded Sydney, but she was already automatically rolling away from where she had been. Being a moving target was much better than staying in one place.

Irina hadn't moved, though. "It's okay, Sydney." She said sharply and held a hand out to her as she rose to a standing position herself. "Hello, Ivan," she snapped coldly to the man, who had just walked calmly into the room.

"You should not be here, Irina. You are nothing now, you have no protection. It still amazes me though that you were stupid enough to bring your American daughter with you." He sneered the word 'American' in disgust.

"It still amazes me that I actually employed you."

Sydney watched with wary fascination as Irina crossed the distance between them in one quick fluid movement, before the man could even react. A knife appeared in Irina's hand and was held to the man's throat without hesitation. "Sydney I would like you to meet Ivan Petrovich, one of my former employees."

"You shouldn't have come back Irina," he warned.

Behind him, Irina rolled her eyes. She had at one time employed Ivan, but in the end he had proved to be too unintelligent to be useful. His sources of information were pathetic, but she knew that one of his few reliable resources was the man who she had contacted earlier. He might have been forced to help her by her well established threat of blackmail, but he hadn't hesitated to inform Ivan about her reappearance. She had counted on it, in fact. She had told Sydney that the gear that they needed would be there before the morning, she just hadn't mentioned that they might have to take what they needed off of the people that came after them. Details, details...

Sydney was moving now and she easily searched Ivan and stripped off all of his weapons and anything else that might be useful to them. Irina resisted the temptation to slit his throat. Truthfully, she should have done it years ago, but here, now, in front of Sydney was not the time or the place. Instead she used the hilt of the knife to knock him unconscious and began to move towards the doorway.

"Ivan wouldn't have come here alone. He'll have more people waiting outside. But if we can make it past them, they should have some method of transportation that we can.. borrow."

Sydney nodded as they headed out into the hall. "Do you want to split up or stay together?"

"Together," Irina said moving in front of her. Sydney fell into step behind her easily, without protest and tried not to think how unusual it felt to be working with Irina, not chasing her.

As they moved stealthily through the hallway and down the stairs, Sydney kept an eye on the hall behind them, expecting more men from behind them.

Her mother slipped easily out of the rear door and immediately ran into four men. From the way they reacted to her, they had to be with Ivan. Quickly Irina spun into action and moved out of the door way allowing Sydney access to the other men. The men were decently trained but together, Sydney and Irina made short work of them. This time they had more luck when they searched the men and found several guns and a bit of ammunition.

Moving swiftly away before someone came to investigate the noise they faded into the deeper shadows along the wall and began searching for Ivan's vehicle. They found it moments later around the front of the building, surrounded by several armed men. There was no way that they could get a clean shot at the men without getting shot themselves.

Both leaned back against the wall out of sight. Irina saw Sydney next to her and watched as she stepped away from the wall. Sydney tucked her pistol into the waistband of her pants, behind her back. "Be right back," she said quickly and walked away.

Irina swore violently as she realized too late what Sydney was planning to do, but didn't move to stop her. That could jeopardize her daughter's plan and put her in even more danger, if that was possible.

She watched in fury as Sydney approached the nearest man and began to shamelessly come on to him. After a few moments, the rest of the men had left their positions and converged on Sydney and the first guard.

Three of the men went down, shot by Irina before the other two even realized what was going on. Sydney took the first one out easily with a carefully executed blow and shot the second one didn't prove to be much of a fight.

Irina ran over to the vehicle, slipped easily into the driver's seat and floored the car as soon as Sydney was in it. Sydney sat beside her in silence. If she sensed Irina's anger, she didn't comment on it, or try to appease her. After almost an hour of Irina's angry silence and harsh, wild driving, Irina bit out, "You wouldn't have done that if your father was there."

Sydney looked up sharply. It was only the second time that either of them had brought up Jack. "I saw an opportunity, I took it." She stated pointedly.

"And if you were with Jack, you would have found another way, he would never had allowed it." Irina could see her daughter bristle at that.

"Dad hasn't allowed me or not allowed me to do something since I was about sixteen," Sydney shot back. "And you certainly don't have the right to tell me what to do."

It was the angriest Irina had seen Sydney in quite a while. Sometimes Sydney was too much like her.

"Besides don't tell me you wouldn't have tried it yourself if you had thought of it first."

"Don't do something like that again, Sydney," Irina warned, "Not when you're working with me and there's a safer way."

"It would have taken too long your way," Sydney snapped back.

"Your impatience could have gotten you killed." Irina let out her breath in a sigh and said with more calm but equal intensity, "I will not be responsible for telling Jack that you died while you were with me."

Her last statement seemed to hit Sydney like she had just run into a brick wall and her anger dissolved, "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm just used to taking risks and working more or less on my own."

"You never played well with other children," Irina said dryly after a moment of silence and Sydney let out a snort of laughter.

"Where are we going," Sydney asked after a few miles of silence.

"I checked a map earlier and we're only about a six hour drive form one of the larger towns in this area. From there we should be able to catch a flight to Moscow. I have a piece of property near there that we can work from."

"Good," said Sydney and despite her adrenaline induced alertness, Irina could hear the exhaustion in her daughter's voice.

"Sydney," she suggested gently, "Why don't you get some sleep, Sweetheart. I'll wake you up if there's trouble."

At first Irina thought she was going to resist but then she relaxed and nodded. "Okay," she said softly.

As her daughter slept, Irina couldn't help but send an occasional glance towards her as she slept. The look on Sydney's face was empty of pain, hate and betrayal, she looked young and innocent. It reminded her of Sydney as a child and made her heart ache, knowing what she had endured in her life. Sydney rarely carried that look of peaceful happiness with her during her waking hours. She had been hurt by too many things in her life. Irina wished there was some way she could take away Sydney's pain at loosing a parent at such a young age. She couldn't change that now, though, but maybe she could prevent her daughter from loosing another parent.


	12. Chapter 12

It took all of Jack's self control to maintain his usual grimly stoic expression and not struggle against his restraints in a furious attempt to strangle Arvin Sloane as he calmly baited him.

"Well Jack, I have to admit it surprised me as well, when Sydney chose Irina instead of you. I know you two don't have a very close relationship, but really, Jack, I thought she would choose you over Irina. After all you haven't ever shot her. That has to count for something."

There was only one time in Jack's life that he could remember hating Arvin more and that was the moment that he had found out that Sloane had recruited his daughter behind his back. He had almost killed Sloane on the spot.

Arvin, apparently, was unheeding of the danger he was putting himself in as he continued talking. He leaned in towards Jack in a conspiratorial move. "Jack we've known each other for decades. Don't do this. All I want is for you to work with me. Surely that's not too much to ask in exchange for your life and Sydney's being spared."

"Arvin," Jack replied coldly, "I would rather renew my vows with Irina," he spat his wife's name, "than work with you."

"Ah, yes," Sloane said with a look of comprehension, "You darling wife. Surely you don't think she or Sydney will come to save you Jack. Not after what you did to her. After all, my friend, all you ever were to her was a means to an end."

Jack didn't even flinch, after saying that very thing to himself everyday since he had found out that his wife was KGB, he had long ago managed to control his outward reaction to it. He still felt the sharp pain of her betrayal and his anger at how he had been fooled, as sharply as he had years ago, though. There was something else besides that pain now, though, accompanying that familiar pain was faith.

Hope was far too fragile of an emotion to allow himself, but he did have faith. Faith in Sydney and her love for him despite his failures as a father and strangely enough faith in Irina. Things were different now. He had changed and so had Irina. He was no longer a young man whose entire life had been destroyed in a matter of days. He was older now and he knew that things were never as clear cut as he had thought back then.

He knew now, for example, that just because his wife had worked for the KGB that it didn't mean everything she had ever said to him was a lie. It meant that there was some small chance that he could trust Irina, that maybe she loved him.

One of Arvin's tactics was solitary confinement. It wasn't very original, or very efficient, but it had given Jack a long time to think, mainly about everything that had happened since he had found out that Irina was alive. The moment Sydney had shared her conclusion with him about the fact that Irina was actually alive, he had been filled with rage. Laura Bristow had been the love of his life and the mother of his child, no one else even compared to her. Irina Derevko had not only killed his wife, but she had tarnished every moment of their life together merely by her existence. He had held onto his rage until they had gone on that damned mission with Sydney.

All it had taken was one kiss in the middle of a custom's line to realize something. The kiss itself was wonderful of course, it had been a very long time since he had kissed her and he had missed that. He had also almost killed her for that kiss until he had noticed something else. More than most people, spy's were trained to notice people's body language, their tells, and he had noticed Irina's.

She was a good actress; she would have to have been, so he wouldn't have been surprised if the kiss had seemed full of love and just as he remembered it. That would have just been Irina playing an old and very familiar part. No, what had surprised him was that Irina had seemed nervous. To everyone else she would have seemed cocky, confidant, but it was the little things that gave her away. Most people would have chalked her nervousness up to wearing a necklace of c-4, but he knew better.

Irina Derevko didn't get nervous about life and death. It had made him think. After that he had started noticing the little things. Irina's façade never slipped, but he had started to notice the tiny chinks in her armor. He had loved Laura Bristow, but he was only starting to realize that in everyway that counted he already knew Irina Derevko. It was a strange sort of comfort to think that maybe Irina loved him. If it was true, Jack wasn't certain what he would do, but it would definitely not be boring. They certainly had more issues than most normal couples.

\- -

They made only one stop before they reached the airport and that was to purchase Irina a cell phone. As they boarded the plane to take them to Moscow, she made several phone calls. By the time the airline stewardess came by to rudely remind them that "cell phones must be turned off while in flight," Irina was done.

For the first time in days, Irina had a look of satisfaction on her face when she turned to face Sydney. "My sources are working on finding Sloane and your father." Her smile was confident, "By the time we reach my home, they will have information for us."

"I'll kill Sloane if he hurts Dad." Sydney's harsh declaration didn't surprise Irina. Sometimes Sydney showed that she could be just as ruthless as her parents.

"You're very protective of Jack," Irina noted casually.

Sydney shrugged, suddenly quiet. Jack was a sensitive topic, but one of the few things that was tying them together at the moment.

Irina smiled fondly over at her daughter and continued as if she hadn't noticed her daughter's reaction. "You've always been like that, even when you were little. I remember one time, you were probably about five or maybe you had just turned six. It was a Saturday and Jack and I had been promising you a family day at the park for about two weeks. Jack's superior refused to give him the day off, but Jack ignored him and came with us. The man actually went to our house and waited until we got home. He chewed Jack out in front of both of us." Irina's smile grew and took on a look of predatory satisfaction. "I was furious and Jack was just standing there. You ran up to that man and kicked him in the shin. You practically yelled at him, "Don't talk to my Daddy that way."

She focused on Sydney. Her daughter was grown up now and capable of doing so much more to protect her father. "I was so proud of you that day," she added.

Sydney nodded, a chagrined look appearing on her face. "How did Dad react?" She asked tentatively. The Jack Bristow that Sydney knew wouldn't have been pleased by his daughter's actions.

"Jack was amused. He thought the man was an ass. He was right."

"I wish I could remember that," Sydney said wistfully, "I wonder if Dad remembers?" She looked away, turning to look at the area that they were flying over. Sydney could feel her mother's eyes on her, but she ignored it.

"Sydney," she heard her mother ask quietly, "I know Jack was never home as much as he should have been, but he always loved you and you adored him. What happened to change your relationship with your father?"


	13. Chapter 13

Sydney Bristow smiled. She had long since stopped believing that anything was truly impossible. So many impossible things had happened in her life, but this scene, this moment had to be the most unbelievable so far.

The beach was beautiful with waves gently lapping at the shore. The setting sun gave everything a beautiful golden flow and a light breeze danced through the air creating a wonderful setting. In the midst of all of the natural beauty, two people stood across from one another, gazing at each as if they were the only people on the planet. Their hands held onto each other fiercely and their eyes were filled with love for one another.

The smile on Jack Bristow's face was almost as shocking as seeing him look at Irina Derevko with anything other than absolute hate and loathing. The minister, however was aware of none of this as he continued on with his planned speech about love and honor and commitment. The irony of the situation was lost on none of its participant's, but for today at least, the crimes of years past would not be brought up. Today was a day for the future and for happiness. It was a day for love and family, even twisted dysfunctional families. Today was the day that Irina Derevko and Jack Bristow would renew their wedding vows.

The participants held their breath as the minister paused and let out a breath as he finally said, "I now pronounce you man and wife according to the laws of this state." The minister's gaze shifted to Jack and a twinkle of merriment could be seen in his eyes, "You may now kiss the bride."

Showing some of his characteristic personality, Jack nodded curtly at him before he leaned towards her. "I love you, Irina," were the last words he mumbled before their lips met.

"Mike!"

"Mike, if you don't_"

Michael Vaughn's eyes snapped open to find himself in a very disoriented state.

"Oh good, you're awake."

He ignored Weiss and his continued speech as he tried to figure out what had happened and where he was. He glanced around and realized he was in the operations center bull pen. The next thing he realized was the fact that he had fallen asleep on his desk. He almost gagged in horror as he remembered his dream, his nightmare. The thought of Irina and Jack renewing vows was not one his fragile psyche could handle.

"Mike, Mike, are you listening to me? Kendall wants you in the briefing room in five minutes you have to wake up, man."

He resisted the urge to punch Weiss and focused instead on the pounding in his head. It felt like he had been drugged. Drugged..Weiss, had been threatening him with sleeping pills if he didn't take a few hours off for rest. He started forward to snap at Weiss, when what Weiss had been saying finally registered. "We have a lead on Sydney," he demanded. Weiss's short nod was all the confirmation he needed to send him running towards the briefing room. Killing Weiss could wait until later, until Sydney was safe.

\- -

A day or two ago when she was freefalling out of a very high airplane, being securely strapped into an airplane seat that was firmly bolted into the floor of a pressurized cabin, would have been heaven. Now she would have preferred to be anywhere but here. She did not want to have this conversation. There were in fact, only a very few people in the world besides, she and her father that knew what had happened to their relationship. Francie, her best friend since she was a child, and Vaughn were among the few that she had trusted with that particular truth.

She certainly didn't want to have this conversation with her mother. She felt like a teenager again. "Sydney," Irina's voice was quiet.

"Mom," she said quickly overriding whatever Irina had started to say, "Do you know when the last time Dad bought me a birthday present was?" Her tone contained more bitterness than she intended and she realized that she was struggling to keep her voice low and calm.

Irina didn't answer. She didn't know and the question was also rhetorical.

"I was seven, and you had bought the gift early and hidden it before you left. Eventually we just stopped talking to one another. We barely even talked between the time I was eighteen and I found out that Dad worked for sd-6, too." She took a deep breath. "The first boyfriend of mine that Dad even met was Danny. Danny called him. Dad wasn't just at work a lot. He. Wasn't. There." She paused and Irina saw her try to calm down. In a softer voice she added, "I know now why he wasn't there as much as a normal father, but that doesn't mean that he should have avoided me whenever he could have been there." She looked down and for the first time in a few days Irina saw the more emotionally open daughter she was used to. "I used to think it was because I looked so much like his dead wife. At least now I know the real reason."

Irina's face, for one very odd moment, resembled Jack's unemotional mask of cold indifference. She focused her gaze steadily on her daughter and ignored her verbal assault. It hurt yes, but this went beyond emotional pain, or it all came back to pain, depending upon how you looked at it all. "I considered taking you back with me when I left," Irina said slowly, giving Sydney a moment to absorb the shock of her words.

"Why," Sydney asked after the moment of silence had passed, "Why didn't you I mean."

"There were many reasons, but mainly because I thought your father needed you more and he could give you a better life. Russia was nothing like America and you would have been in far more danger there." She met Sydney's gaze unflinchingly. "Your lifestyle now is dangerous, but I couldn't have guaranteed that you would've reached your seventh birthday." She raised a hand almost hesitantly to wipe away a single tear that was sliding down her daughter's cheek. "I'm sorry if you didn't have the best childhood, but I am glad that you're still alive. Besides," she added with a grimace, "I think we've proven that Jack was the best parent for you to be left with. I did the best I could, Sydney. I just regret for your sake and Jack's that it wasn't enough."

Irina was surprised to feel a tear sliding down her own cheek. At least she wasn't still stuck in that damn glass cage with camera's trained on her every reaction around the clock.

"Mom," Irina looked up. No matter how Sydney said that word, whether it was full of anger and loathing or as she sometimes liked to hope, love, she always loved to hear her say it. "Mom," she repeated quietly, "Thank you."

It was the last thing on Earth that Irina would have expected Sydney to say, so all she did was nod once, curtly and settle back into her seat. Despite having more or less settled that confrontation with her daughter, she felt exhausted, old and tired. As quickly as she might have dodged past her daughter's words, what Sydney had said still haunted her.

She hated to think what had happened to Sydney and Jack after she left. Between her imprisonment in Kashmir and time to gather the necessary resources, it had taken her years before she could make the barest of inquires about them. That first attempt had only resulted in a few pictures, but it had confirmed that they were still alive. By then Sydney was thirteen and she had grown incredibly, as had her resemblance to Irina.

Seeing a picture of Sydney had thrilled her, but it was the picture of Jack that had affected her the most. He looked as if decades, not years had passed and his demeanor was cold. So cold that for a moment, she had almost doubted that the man in the photo had been her husband.

In a fit of denial and anger, she had thrown the picture in the fire. It had taken her only seconds to regret her decision. As shocking as the picture had been, it had been the only picture she had of Jack at the time. She had saved the picture, but burned her hand badly. She had always known that anything involving Jack was like playing with fire, but that had proven it. Her hand had healed with time, though, and now the scars could only faintly be seen. Maybe it was a metaphor for her relationship with Jack. Maybe-

"Mom," Sydney's voice, cut in quietly. "I answered your question. Will you answer one of mine?"

Sydney's sudden interest in conversation made Irina wary, especially in light of their previous conversation. Her daughter had always had knack for asking difficult questions, even as a child. Irina nodded and met Sydney's eyes unflinchingly.

"Did you love Dad?"


	14. Chapter 14

Agent Michael Vaughn shifted impatiently in his seat. The flight seemed endless. It was made ten times worse by the fact that every moment that passed was one more he spent away from Sydney, one more moment wasted, slipping away from him, just like Sydney.

He had been so optimistic when he had walked into the unexpected briefing that Kendall had abruptly arranged. The moment he heard that they had a possible lead on Sloane, at least they thought it was Sloane, based on the footage they had been shown of Jack and Irina entering an international bank in Sweden. His first reaction other than relief at finally having a lead, was disbelief.

There was no way that he could believe that Jack was voluntarily working with Irina Derevko. He had, after all, been responsible for setting the woman up to be executed in the past, but so far there had been nothing to disprove the photos that they had been given by an anonymous source.

When after an interminably long amount of time had passed and with a certain amount of reluctance, Kendalll finally announced that a team was being sent in to raid the 'bank' and search it for anything that might provide them with another lead, Vaughn had immediately volunteered. He hadn't been surprised to see that Dixon was only a fraction of a second behind him. He understood the loyalty and trust that Sydney and Dixon had developed for one another. They were partners and friends. Dixon wouldn't hesitate to risk his life to save Sydney, just as she hadn't hesitated to save his life nearly a year ago, even at the risk of her own cover.

So now they were on the way to Sweden with a team of operatives. To them Sydney was just another agent in danger, to Vaughn she was everything and he would do anything to ensure her safety. After all he was Sydney Bristow's guardian angel.

===============================================================

Irina met Sydney's gaze easily. "Of course, I do, Sweetheart, but we've already had this conversation. Do you really find it so hard to believe that I would tell you the truth?"

Sydney looked chagrined and shook her head. "I guess, Mom. It's not that I think you're lying. I remember how happy the two of you always looked. I just find it hard to believe that you could come to love someone that you had probably been taught to hate all of your life."

Irina looked at her daughter for a moment and then said fondly, "You are your father's daughter. You have to have proof and a logical answer for everything." She leaned back in her seat and her eyes fell half shut engulfing her in almost forgotten memories. Memories that she had treasured for years, but had been too painful to drag to the surface.

"You're right to a degree. The first time I met Jack, I hated him. But there was something about Jack that was different, something about it just kept nagging at me. At first I thought it was something related to the mission, a slip I had made and had yet to realize, something he might already be using to find out who I really was. Or maybe information that he had mentioned with a significance I hadn't realized yet. That feeling of missing something stayed with me for months as I played my part. Until one evening, I was out with Jack as usual, when he asked me something." She half-smiled, "I don't even remember what he asked me anymore, but I do remember coming to a realization right there. I realized that the answer I was about to give him wasn't a lie. It was something I might have said even as Irina, not just as Laura."

Her voice gained enthusiasm and remembered happiness showed through the hardened veneer that she showed the world, "You see Sydney, what had been nagging me was my subconscious awareness of the fact that I was no longer playing a part and how dangerous that could be for me and for Jack."

"Mom," Sydney started to say, but was cut off by Irina.

"No, I understand Sydney, as soon as we-"

"Mom," Sydney repeated talking over her, "I'm sorry." She didn't say anything else, instead she looked away out of the plane.

The two women were silent for the rest of the flight, each of them caught up in their own thoughts, and neither even tried to engage the other in conversation as they exited the plane. Irina walked confidently out of the airport without even the slightest of uncertain glances. Sydney followed along in her wake, content with her mother's silence for the moment.

They reached the area where vehicles waited for arriving passengers to leave and Irina strode easily towards one of the nearby limos. Without a word, the driver got out and opened a backdoor to let Irina in. She slid in without hesitation and Sydney followed her after only the briefest of glances at her surroundings.

"Thank you, Dimitri," she heard her mother tell the driver. The old man simply nodded and replied, "Confirmation that your orders were carried out was delivered this morning."

A brief glimpse of triumph could be seen in Irina's eyes, before she said again, "Thank you." She paused and then added, "Sydney and I need to have a private conversation for a moment, but let me know if anything comes up that need my attention."

"Yes, Ms. Derevko," it was his turn to hesitate, then, "Would you like the reports from all of your assets when we arrive?"

"No, Dimitri," she said, "This trip isn't about business, it's personal. The only information I want is what I've already asked for."

Dimitri nodded and raised the privacy barrier between the front and the back. Irina could see that Sydney was almost bursting with questions. She remained silent until she realized that as much as it might pain Sydney's morals, for the moment she wouldn't ask any questions about 'The Man's' Syndicate. Jack came first.

"I had surveillance showing Jack and I in Switzerland leaked to the CIA," she stated calmly.

"What?" That had certainly caught Sydney's attention. Calmer, or at least quieter she asked, "Why did you do that?"

"The CIA had no leads on your disappearance. They won't find much, but it will give them a place to begin. It will also begin to put Arvin under more pressure. When we get," she paused as if carefully choosing her next word, "home there will be a more detailed reports of what's happening with Arvin and Jack."

Syndey looked down and then back up at Irina. "Mom," she said so softly that Irina almost had to strain to hear her. "I meant what I said earlier. I am sorry for what I said. I just have a hard time believing what you say sometimes. Even when I want to, somewhere in the back of my mind I'm always wondering if this is true. It all seems too good to be believable. I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall and for everything to go wrong again."

"Sydney," she said softly, trying to bury the pain she felt at Sydney's comment, "I've only lied about my feelings for Jack once and that was in my first KGB debriefing after I returned to Russia. I will never lie about that again. I can't guarantee that everything will be fine, but I can tell you that my love will never change or disappear."

Irina could see the beginnings of tears forming in Sydney's eyes and hesitantly, not even certain of what she was doing herself, she reached out to Sydney.

To her surprise especially given their recent conversation, Sydney didn't hesitate or stop her, she returned her mother's embrace unconditionally. "I don't want to lose Dad, Mom," Irina could hear the tears in her daughter's voice. "There's so much that I want to tell Dad, so many conversations we never had because he was too busy working or I was too busy being an angry resentful teenager."

Stroking her daughter's silky hair, Irina said quietly, "It's okay, Sweetheart. Jack will be fine. We will find him."

As she held Sydney, she silently marveled that her daughter, who had lived for so long under the strain of a double, if not triple life- counting the façade of a banker that she maintained for her friends, and yet almost crumbled at her father's kidnapping. Not that she, Irina, was holding up that much better herself, but she had many more years of practice at being alone and having to be strong.

"Ms. Derevko," Dimitri's voice hissed over an intercom, "Someone that claims they have information for you is waiting to speak to you after we arrive."

"I assume he has been checked as a legitimate source." Gone was Irina the caring mother and in her place 'The Man' made a sudden appearance.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Have him waiting in my study, when we arrive." She paused, "Oh and Dimitri," she questioned, "Did you bring what I asked for?"

He didn't reply, but raised one hand off of the wheel and gestured towards the back.

Sydney, looking much less fragile than she had moments before, looked at Irina curiously. Irina responded by opening a panel that Sydney hadn't even realized was there. Like a magician pulling rabbits out of hat, Irina began pulling out several varieties of pistols and even a few knives.

"Take whatever you want," Irina said easily. "I didn't want us to be caught unarmed again."

Sydney picked one up and began to examine it with professional competence. A slight smile appeared on Sydney face as she carefully hefted it, "Aren't you afraid I'll shoot you with it?"

Irina matched her grin with a bitter one of her own. "No, that's why we're freeing, Jack, Dear. He's the only member of this happy little family that hasn't shot another family member, yet."

Sydney frowned, suddenly serious, the brief moment of joking gone. "He wouldn't, Mom, he couldn't."

Irina looked at her with disbelief and tried to mask the pain she felt at the thought of Jack wanting to kill her. "He already tried to have me executed once and he almost succeeded. I have no delusions about Jack's feelings towards me." She picked up a gun of her own and slipped ammunition into it, passing another clip to Sydney a moment later.

"No, Dad might hate how you lied to him, left him, and betrayed his trust, but he doesn't want you dead, now. He only tried to have you," she struggled for a more pleasant euphemism for a moment, "removed, because he was trying to protect me. The two of you have too much left to resolve before either of you can die."

Sydney's comment momentarily silenced her and made her start to think. Perhaps Jack's feelings weren't as much of a lost cause as she had feared. Or Sydney could be reading her father totally wrong. After a moment's consideration, Irina decided that regardless she still liked Sydney's original analysis better.


	15. Chapter 15

Michael Vaughn slammed a fist into the wall and didn't even blink as one of the younger operatives looked up at him in shock. Actually the younger agent should have been grateful for his restraint. What he really felt like doing was unloading a clip into the wall. It would certainly be more satisfying and less painful, at least for his hand.

They had found nothing! The building had been deserted except for people who truly knew nothing, a few receptionists and financial consultants who thought they really did work for a bank. Vaughn hadn't been expecting to catch Sloane, but he had at least been hoping to catch a break. True, their were a few of the employees still being interviewed, but so far they had found nothing. A feeling of desperation penetrated his rage at last, and he flashed upon the image of Sydney's face in Taipei, separated by a mere pain of glass, and the look of terror on her face as she thought she would be forced to watch him drown.

He had never even told her he loved her.

If he ever saw her again- "Agent Vaughn," Dixon's low voice snapped him out of his maudlin thoughts. "I think we've found something."

Burying his previous anger, Vaughn followed Dixon back to a computer terminal in a large office. The agent sitting at the terminal looked up briefly as he heard them enter. "We check the computers as a part of the standard procedure. Of course we never find anything," the agent and hopefully competent computer tech said without preamble or a need to be prodded, "but today must be your luck day. I recognized this system as the work of Mr. Flinkman." The agent paused and Vaughn could see the briefest look of animosity in the man's eyes.

For all of his genius, or because of it, Marshall was more than capable of annoying people, or even angering them without realizing it as a man with almost no social skills and an almost boyishly innocent and shy personality, showed up their work as acceptable, but simply lacking his uniquely brilliant touch. For the moment, though, Vaughn couldn't care less about an inner-agency rivalry. He wanted to know what had been found.

"However, the person who activated the memory wipe was obviously not familiar with Mr. Flinkman. After the incident last year when Sd-6 was taken over by McKenas Cole, Mr. Flinkman began working on a way that no information could be downloaded or wiped without a certain procedure being followed. Of course, it appeared as if the action was successful, but it's not." The tech stopped in mid-speech and tapped a few keys. "We don't know what it might give us, or how long it will take to decrypt it, but we should be able to retrieve this." The tech grimaced, "However, we will need Mr. Flinkman here."

Vaughn was already making the call before the man had finished speaking. For the moment it looked as if they had been handed a completely unexpected break and he planned to use the advantage as much as he could.

===============================================================

The limo slowed to a halt and Sydney leaned forward in her seat. It was obvious to her that this place meant more to Irina than just another one of the many locations she owned around the world for business purposes. She wanted to see what made this place special. Carefully she tucked the gun away and reached for the door handle to open it, but stopped when Irina waved her back.

"Let Dimitri get it," she said softly. She was silent for a moment until they finally stepped out. Sydney watched her mother for the distance of the short walk between the limo and the house. She paused inside, taking in the tasteful and comfortable decorations of the room around her.

"It's nice," Sydney said at last.

Irina nodded, running a finger over the top of a nearby table. "Yes, it is. I've spent quite a bit of time her over the years." She sighed and Sydney could see a brief look of sadness pass over her face. "I'll have to sell it, when we get you father back." She forced a smile, "So don't bother sending in a team when you get back, there won't be anything here."

"Mom," Sydney protested weakly.

"It's okay, Sweetheart. We have other things to discuss for the moment. This man that Dimitri told us about; he's not one of my operatives and our discussion might not be that...pleasant." She looked at Sydney, her directness and the look in her eyes almost enough to startle her. "Sydney, you're an adult and you have a choice. Do you want to be in there when I talk with him?"

Sydney nodded, "Actually Mom, I've been thinking about that and I'm not sure that I should be there. Most people know that I'm CIA and if someone finds out that I'm with you, it could make them think you were working with the CIA and make you a target."

Irina almost laughed. She couldn't believe what her daughter had said. "Sydney," she stated slowly, "Are you saying that you shouldn't be in there for my safety."

Now it was Sydney's turn to meet her mother's eyes with intensity born of desperation. "I've already lost my mother once. I won't lose you again. I don't care how much we fight or disagree, or shoot one another."

Irina could feel tears involuntarily well in her eyes. Only her daughter could get to her like this. Well Jack could, too, but that was in an entirely different way. Only they, her family could make her feel like a real person, not the cruel assassin, or the powerful, dangerous woman that she had to be to survive the rest of the world. Irina swallowed and she slid her eyes shut for a moment, trying to find a sense of calm. "Sydney, as long as you want me to be here," she said, "I will. I promise you that." She let a small smile flicker over her feature before she hardened them into an expression that would have been completely alien to Laura Bristow, but was infinitely familiar to Irina Derevko. "Now come on, Sweetheart. Let's go see what this man has to say."

===============================================================

No sign of the warm emotions that had been shared outside of the room were apparent when they entered. Irina ignored the man entirely and walked to the window, gazing out of it with seeming preoccupation. Normally she wouldn't have so cavalierly turned her back on the man or anyone whose skills she didn't already know, but she trusted Sydney to watch her back. "You have some information for me," she asked casually. The man's eyes held conceit and a lack of any worry or concern for himself that immediately set Irina's spine tingling.

"Perhaps," the man said curtly, "for a price."

Irina resisted the urge to send the man flying. She had had this conversation countless with countless pigs like this one. She was tired of their pointless posturing. It had long since ceased to hold any interest for her. "And what is your price," she asked not bother to dance around the subject. This was for Jack and she would do whatever she had to. She would do anything for him, even make him hate her like she had twenty years ago.

Her daughter's movement caught her eye. It was almost nothing, so minute of a movement that very few people would have seen it. Sydney's eyes tightened imperceptibly and Irina mentally snapped to full alert. Sydney had seen something, something that was had alarmed her and that worried Irina more than she cared to admit.

"Thirty million US dollars."

She heard Sydney's badly stifled snort of disbelief from behind him, but she didn't respond. Instead she took a seat behind the large desk in the room. Most people would have looked intimidated, sitting in front of the towering man, but she had long since learned the art of appearing full of power even while sitting down. "Thirty million is quite a bit of money," she said calmly, "What exactly do you know that would be worth thirty million dollars to me?"

This time the man smiled, "The exact location of your precious husband," by this time Sydney had walked around the room and made her way over to where her mother sat. Her arms were folded across her chest and she glared at the man. He leered blatantly back at her and then looked at Irina speculatively. "Although, I must admit I would consider lowering the price for a night with her," he added, gesturing rudely at Sydney.

Before the man knew what had happened, he was slammed up against the wall with Irina's gun pressed to his forehead. "She," Irina emphasized, pressing the gun harder into his skull, "is my daughter and," she added coolly, "I will kill you before I let a pig like you near her. Now tell me what you know about Jack and I might not kill you."

"Mom," Sydney snapped and Irina turned her head without releasing the man.

"Sydney," she started to say. She knew her daughter wouldn't approve of what she was doing, but she didn't understand.

"No, Mom," she cut in, "He's wired." Sydney stepped forward easily, and pulled back his jacket. Seeing their momentary preoccupation, the man shoved away from the wall, knocking Irina away from him and into Sydney.

He bolted to the door but crumpled to the ground with a scream of pain as Irina coolly shot him in the shoulder. Not bothering to call her own security people, she quickly rolled him over with Sydney's help. As they fumbled with the man's clothing, stripping everything away from the wire, Irina absently noticed that her daughter had grabbed a corner of the man's jacket and was using it to keep pressure on the wound and slow the bleeding. She spared a moment to glance over at her daughter. "Thank you for trusting me, Sydney."

Sydney smiled slightly, "You could have just knocked him out." But her words held no real chastisement or anger with her mother. She suddenly froze, her smile disappearing, "Mom, this isn't an audio tap being used to record our conversation, this is a remote detonator."

========================================================================

Jack Bristow was one of the best agents in the CIA or even the world for that matter, but even he didn't see a way out of his current situation, at least not without some assistance. He wouldn't find any assistance here, however. He knew that much. None of the men Arvin had gathered around himself here even knew what the "right thing" was, not to mention even considering actually doing it, especially when there was nothing in it for them.

The feeling of utter helplessness was inescapable. Lesser men than he would have abandoned hope and given up to despair by now and fallen in for whatever Arvin Sloane had planned. Jack Bristow, however, was not most men. He didn't give up. He'd had far more taken from him in his life. Sydney and Irina were safe, for the moment or at least as safe as they ever were in their lives.

After the first few days, or what he had approximated to be the first few days, he began to form mental profiles of all of the guards. He watched them and filed away their actions, seeing their habits, all of their strengths and weaknesses. He observed their reactions to Sloane's infrequent visits and he watched Sloane. Jack couldn't really tell how much time had passed, but he could see the effects of time on his former friend.

As if thinking of Arvin had summoned him, Jack could hear the thud of Sloane's shoes making his way towards him. Sloane walked in, accompanied by a burly man who Jack guessed had an IQ roughly that of a peanut's.

Today Sloane was all smiles. "Hello Jack." If anything his smile widened, growing all the more unnerving as it did so. "Today, Jack, I have a deal for you. You see one of my employees has made an interesting discovery. Apparently your lovely wife has made the foolish mistake of developing a pattern of behavior. She has returned to her so called safe house outside of Moscow with Sydney. You see, Jack, the problem, at least for you, Sydney and Irina, is that one of my operatives have approached Irina in the guise of having information on your whereabouts. Of course," he said drawing it all out with such slow silky smoothness that had Jack not already know that Sloane was psychotic he would have know then, "The real problem is that my operative is armed with enough explosives to detonate Mount Rushmore in one blast much less that hovel that Irina calls a house."

Arvin paced around Jack, his fingers steepled in contemplation. "So, Jack, the question becomes, what are you willing to do to save the life of your daughter, and," he added almost as an after thought, "Irina as well."


	16. Chapter 16

"Bastard," Irina hissed in fury, her eyes flashing as she thought rapidly. Arvin had changed the rules. He was probably betting that she and Sydney wouldn't find the explosives and use that to force Jack's hand. Irina knew beyond a doubt that he would do anything for their daughter. If it was anyone else, she would have held out hope that they trusted her enough to keep Sydney safe. She had no such confidence in Jack's trust in her.

"Mom," Sydney spoke up quickly, after only a second of intense examination. "I think I can disarm this."

"No," Irina held up a hand to stop her daughter. "Not yet." She glanced at the man she had shot and then back at the detonator. "Let me know if the status starts to change. I have a plan. Arvin has over played his hand this time. Dimitri," she called, walking over to the door to open it wide as she called to the old man.

Sydney didn't see the man approach, but a moment later she heard her mother. Irina's voice was filled with a strange mix of anticipation, the thrill of the huntress with prey in sight, and resignation. "Dimitri, get everyone out, now." She looked back into the room, "Oh, and get someone in here to deal with this man. He has a gun shot wound and I may need him later."

After a moment, two burly men appeared at the door and after giving Irina respectful nods, unceremoniously picked the man up and walked out of the room. The moment they were gone, Irina looked up at Sydney. "You don't have to help me, but there are a few things here of sentimental value to me. Would you mind helping me carry them out?"

Sydney looked at her mother, bewildered. "Mom what are you saying? Listen to yourself! We can't just let Sloane win this."

Irina smiled. It was an expression Sydney recognized. It was the same look she, herself, got when she thought about what finally stopping Sloane would feel like. "We're not letting them win," Irina said. "We're just letting him think that. Now will you help me?" She pointed to a bookcase across the room, "There's a first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice over there." She smiled, it was wistful and almost out of character for her. "It was a present your father bought me to celebrate our six month anniversary as a couple. It's the only book your father ever bought me that came without orders."

Sydney smiled at her mother's wistful memory, and distracted and somewhat satisfied for the moment with her mother's answer, she picked up the book. Casually she flipped through it. "I know. Dad gave me all of your books, when I moved out- most of your things actually."

Irina looked up from the papers she was rapidly rifling through on her desk. "I had wondered what Jack had done with everything after I died."

Sydney's smile twisted into a half-grimace, "He kept most of it for me." She paused as if considering what she was going to say next and then added, "He never told me that you were alive until I forced his hand."

Irina looked up quizzically. "How did you discover that I was alive? I managed to escape Jack's, and for the most part the CIA's, notice for the past twenty years. They were under the impression that I was dead."

Sydney shook her head at the irony of the situation, "I retrieved a Rambaldi manuscript for the CIA. As I'm sure you know there was a picture on the page that looks a lot like me. Based on that and several other facts, the FBI was trying to take me into custody. I got involved in a car chase with several of their agents, that resulted in me driving into the Pacific." She smiled ruefully, "I had quiet a bit of time to think down there before I called Dad. I realized that if I had done it, you could have, too."

Irina met her eyes. "Sydney," Irina started off slowly, "I'm sorry you had to find out I was alive like that, but, Sweetheart, I'm glad you did. I.."

A quick rap on the door startled them, and both looked up to find Dimitri standing in the doorway. "Everything's ready."

Irina glanced around taking in her sanctuary and shooting one last glance out at the view that she treasured. Resolutely she looked at her daughter, "Let's go. It's time for this at least to end."

Sydney followed her mother as Irina walked out of the house, head held high. When they reached the same Limo that they had come in, Irina turned to look at the knot of men standing a little ways away from them and called, "Dimitri." Once again the older man made his way to her side. "The cars have been checked for explosives?" Sydney got the distinct impression, that while her mother had asked, the question was mainly rhetorical.

He nodded, quickly. "Yes."

"Good, bring me that bastard." Dimitri spoke into a concealed mic for a moment and soon two more men approached, almost dragging the man between them. Still when he stood in front of Irina, he was full of defiance.

Irina looked down at him and asked smoothly, "What was Arvin's plan? Was he the one that was going to detonate the explosives or were you?"

He simply stared at her and for a moment Sydney thought he was going to answer her. Instead he spat at her, a mixture of blood and saliva falling at her feet. The guards yanked him back roughly and Sydney almost expected her mother to hit him. In the end she simply laughed. She half-turned, "Dimitri take care of him," she said easily and ducked into the open door of the limo.

Sydney took one last look at the man before slipping in behind her mother. She wasn't sure what "taking care of him" involved exactly, with her mother it could mean anything from temporary disappearance to his death, but she wanted to ensure that if she did ever meet this man again, that she would recognize him. After all, he worked for Sloane and that in itself was enough to make him the enemy, not to mention the fact that he had tried to blow she and her mother up.

She looked over at Irina and to her surprise, now that they were back in the car, Sydney could see the edge of tension in her mother's features. Alone in the car, Sydney almost surprised herself by reaching over and laying a hand on top of her mother's.

"Mom," she asked quietly, "Are you okay?"

Irina looked down at their hands for a second and then looked up to meet Sydney's eyes. She put her other hand on top of Sydney's and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She nodded, "Of course." Then she asked in a sudden change of topic, "You still have the detonator?"

Sydney nodded and readily handed it over to Irina. Irina stared out the window of the limo towards the house as the driver got in and they began to move away. She took a deep breath and pushed the button on the detonator without any hesitation. The house exploded instantly, shattering into pieces of flaming debris and caving in on itself. Within seconds the entire building was covered in rapidly growing flames. Irina gave Sydney's had one last squeeze, this one more painful than the first squeeze and sat back in her seat. She looked over at Sydney, "We're not going to let Arvin get away with any of this," she said firmly. "I have a plan."

====================================================================

Jack Bristow laughed in his face. He couldn't help it. He had no doubt that Arvin was genuine in his threat to kill Sydney and Irina, but Jack found it hard to believe that he thought he could actually succeed. Neither Irina nor Sydney were likely to sit patiently around and wait for Arvin to blow them up.

"You don't believe me Jack," Arvin's voice was cold and deadly, a tone Jack recognized easily. Jack's lips twisted into a grim ghost of a smile. "No, Arvin I do not. Whatever my feelings may be towards Irina, I have confidence in one thing. She is an expert in survival above all else and I have no doubt that she will absolutely destroy you when you least expect it."

"Is that the voice of experience speaking, Jack," Arvin taunted.

"Well, at least I'll be able to enjoy watching her make you suffer, Arvin."

Sloane paced easily, but after years of supposed friendship Jack could see the anger lurking in Sloane's eyes. "Very well, Jack. I never thought you would choose your Russian whore of a wife over our friendship, but I see now that I have no choice." Sloane gestured to one of the guards outside of the cell.

The man who entered a moment later was dressed in a clean cut suit and looked to be slightly more intelligent that the rest of the thugs that Sloane seemed to have employed here. Jack thought he even recognized the man as one of the former members of the Sd-6 security section.

"I want the bomb detonated now." He looked back down at Jack. "Perhaps then our friend here will be more convinced when he realizes that I'm not bluffing."

The younger man who had come in looked slightly less confidant than Sloane. He turned half away from Jack and said quietly, "Sir, we have a problem. The bomb was detonated prematurely and we've lost contact with our agent."

Despite the front he struggled to maintain for Sloane, Jack could feel the blood drain from his face.


	17. Chapter 17

It had seemed to take forever to get Marshall there. Once he had arrived, Vaughn had practically stood over Marshall's shoulder the whole time he was working until Dixon had "suggested" that he wait for them outside the room. After all it seemed like Marshall was always close to a nervous breakdown. There was no need to push him over the edge while he was obtaining information that they needed.

Instead, he paced the hallway, carefully counting the number of steps back and forth. Everything told him that they were getting closer and closer to finding Sydney, they had to be. He couldn't accept the fact that something had happened to Sydney, that maybe she was gone. He certainly wasn't going to give up on her until he had proof the she was dead and he doubted if he would even believe that. After all, Irina had come back from the dead after twenty years. What he felt for Sydney wasn't temporary and he wouldn't let her go, ever.

"Agent Vaughn," Vaughn snapped around, focusing on Dixon as the older agent stepped out of the room, "We have information."

Quickly Vaughn walked back towards the door, stepping through while Dixon held it open for him. He directed his next question to Marshall. "What do we have?"

It was Dixon that answered, however. "We've found information that tells us where many of Sloane's assets are located. The CIA wasn't even aware of several of these facilities. Pending authorization from the Director we're going to launch simultaneous assaults on these locations."

Vaughn studied Dixon for a moment, disbelief wrinkling his brow, "What about Sydney?"

Dixon spoke clearly, but Vaughn could easily see that the other agent had reservations about what he had been ordered to do, as well. "According to the preliminary reports that our analysts have been feeding us as Marshall decodes this information, it's likely that Sydney is being held at one of three major locations. If all goes well we can retrieve her when we go in."

"Retrieve her when we go in," Vaughn demanded in fury. "That's insane, Dixon, and you know it. Sloane is a psychopath, who knows what he'll do to Sydney if he knows that he'll be captured. This plan is ridiculous."

"It worked at Sd-6."

"It worked because Arvin Sloane wanted it to work. We got lucky. Sydney's good, but no one's that lucky all of the time. The CIA's jeopardizing one of their most valuable agents with this plan."

Dixon said nothing and Vaughn couldn't really tell what he was thinking. After a moment, Dixon said blandly, "According to our mission plan, we leave for Madrid in two hours."

=======================================================================

Irina watched her daughter distractedly as the scenery flashed by them out of the limo window. Sydney's face was turned away from her, towards the window and her eyes were closed, but Irina knew that she wasn't sleeping. Her breathing was calm, but lacked the deep evenness of sleep and Irina was certain that despite her relaxed appearance, Sydney was actually quite alert, at the slightest hint of trouble she would be ready for whatever happened.

If Irina had to guess, though, she would probably say that thoughts of her Agent Vaughn were what occupied Sydney's mind. Irina smiled, hopefully if all went well, Sydney would be back with Agent Vaughn soon. The first part of her plan was already in motion. She hadn't been certain if her daughter would agree but she had in the end. That was the nice thing about controlling an organization. She didn't have to do everything herself. As it was, she and Sydney were already in route to where they needed to be for the next part of their plan.

Sydney shifted slightly and Irina refocused her attention on her daughter. The book that had been on Sydney's lap slid onto the seat between them. Reaching over quietly, not wanting to startle Sydney, Irina picked up the book. She ran a hand over the cover and opened it, flipping through the book randomly. She didn't need to start at the beginning of the book, she had certainly read it enough times. Books like this one hadn't been available to her in the Soviet Union when she was growing up. Her cover as a student of literature hadn't been upsetting for her.

The pages stopped turning and Irina found herself staring at the inside cover. She smiled, running a finger over the inscription. She closed her eyes in an unconscious echo of her daughter's actions and let her mind slip back to that day.

She and Jack had both been struggling undergrads and although she would deny it to her last breath, should anyone ever ask, she was struggling more than him. The first three years of her undergraduate study existed only on paper and despite her rigorous training, English was her sec-well third language actually. Some days she thought she might scream or cry if she heard another word of English. She had been surprised at how much she missed her native language. She couldn't even think in Russian, because of course, Laura wouldn't do that. Catching up on all of the things she should know, things "Laura" would know, and balancing her duties as a spy and the time she spent gaining Jack's trust were nerve-wracking.

There were moments though, that made it all worth it. Her handler, when he wasn't being a detestable pig, stated that those times were the moments when the KGB triumphed, when she had successfully stolen information from Jack. For her, though, those moments were the time she would spend with Jack. The dates she would go on with him, when she didn't have to obtain information from him. The moments where she could forget, just for a second that she was Jack's enemy, that if he were ever to find out who she was, he would hate her.

Irina sighed, nostalgically, what she hadn't known about the direction her life would take back then. That night, their six month anniversary as a couple, was one of her favorite memories or one of her most painful.

==================================================================

"Laura," She looked up from the food on her plate that she had been picking at and smiled involuntarily up at Jack as she met his eyes.

"Hmm," she questioned.

"Is your food all right, Honey?" He asked the picture of attentive concern.

Of course, Jack would notice that she wasn't eating, he was one of the most attentive men she had ever met. It made him an excellent agent and she loved that about him. Jack noticed all of the little things that most other men missed. It was also one of the things that worried Irina the most. She worried that one day his attention to detail would be the end of her career as a KGB agent, and probably be the death of her.

"It's fine," she said with a smile, pushing her darker thoughts to the back of her mind.

He seemed to accept that and then asked her about her day. She relaxed as she answered him. She had been busy lately and she had been ordered to spend more time with Jack. It was an order she could gladly comply with. After the waiter left to bring them dessert, Jack gently took her hand in his. She looked at him, bemused.

He was looking back at her with a mixture of love, shyness and intensity that was uniquely Jack. When she had first been given this assignment, that look had startled the young woman tucked so far beneath the well trained agent that was always on the surface. No man had ever looked at her like that before. Now, she cherished that look, drinking it in.

"I have something for you," he said softly and she forced herself to focus on what he was saying and not how his thumb was running over her hand and making her shiver.

"Jack, you shouldn't have," she said with a combination of playfulness and sincerity.

He smiled at her show of reluctance and said, "I wanted to. Besides have you forgotten what today is?"

She laughed lightly, "How could I? This is our six month anniversary."

He smiled easily and handed her a package. She unwrapped it carefully, smiling in a combination of anticipation and mischievousness as she saw a hint of impatience in Jack's eyes. When she finally opened it, she "oohed" in surprise. Most of Laura's literary education had been false, but she knew how much this was worth. Running her hand over the book, she easily noted the title, Pride and Prejudice, and the edition, first.

It was a classic of English literature and one she had yet to read. As soon as she had time, she would though. It would make the nights when Jack was away on missions that she shouldn't even know about, go by faster.

"Jack," she said looking up at him slowly, "Thank you. This is wonderful." She leaned over and met him in a kiss that he returned fervorently. A moment later when they had pulled apart, he whispered softly, "C'mon let's go."

It was two weeks later before she had actually opened the book. Jack was gone, this time for an indeterminate amount of time and she was missing him more than she should. More than was safe for either of them, should the KGB find out. She curled up on the couch and opened the book. She blinked in surprise and then smiled in delight as she saw the inscription.

"To the women I love with all of my heart. Know that no matter where I am or what I'm doing you're always with me. I love you forever, Darling, never forget that. Happy Anniversay."

She had felt tears slowly slide down her cheeks, "Jack."

=======================================================================

"Mom," Sydney's hand on her shoulder snapped Irina back to the moment. Her voice was business like, but the instant she saw the hint of tears in Irina's eyes, she asked, "Mom, are you okay?"

Irina nodded, pushing those memories away. Now was presumably not the time for a mother/daughter bonding moment. Sydney looked as if she had something urgent to tell her.

Sydney didn't seem quite convinced, but said anyway, "Okay," then, "We're here. The next stage of the operation is ready."

"Good," Irina said firmly, "Are you ready?"

Sydney smiled, determinately, "Of course."

In unison the two women got out of the car, moving towards the sidewalk steadily, with a confidence born of skill and surety to confront the devil himself.

======================================================================

In Madrid, Spain Michael Vaughn stood outside a darkened building. It was dawn and soon the building would be filling with workers. It was his team's job to apprehend these people and stop them, to take down anyone who might be collaborating with Arvin Sloane.

"Status, Boyscout?" Dixon, who was leading the other team, queried Vaughn through their mics.

"Ready on your signal," he replied.

Dixon didn't hesitate. They would be in position well before anyone arrived. Vaughn led his team quickly towards the building, but they didn't make it halfway there before they went flying back in the direction they had come as the building in front of them exploded without warning.


	18. Chapter 18

Gunfire erupted around Sydney as she ran across the lobby, weaving through columns and anything else that she could put between her and the guards that were shooting at her. She slid behind a solid wooden desk and took a deep breath, pulling out a weapon of her own. She counted to three and then stuck her arm out, shooting at the guards. She ducked back behind the desk as they returned fire and glanced first at her watch and then looked to her right down the long hallway to where the elevator sat. One minute left.

She and Irina had split up when they entered the building. Irina had needed a diversion to disable the security override. Sydney certainly thought she had created a big enough diversion. Splinters exploded from the wood around her and she pulled out another pistol. These guards were starting to piss her off. They were working for Arvin Sloane and were partially responsible for keeping her from her father. She stood up from behind her hiding place and began to spray them with return fire. Some were lucky, most weren't.

She paused as she saw reinforcements coming up behind the guards she had effectively penned down and ran towards the elevator. As she ran she saw Irina push the button to open the doors. Fortunately the doors slid quickly open and Irina ducked inside. She returned fire at the guards who were shooting at Sydney, ignoring the gunfire that was exploding around her.

Just as Sydney was about to reach the elevator, Irina hit the close door button, timing it perfectly so that Sydney slid into the elevator at the last moment before the door shut.

Without hesitation, Sydney immediately pulled off the panel concealing the elevator controls. "What floor," she asked with a quick glance in Irina's direction, trusting that she wouldn't be there if she hadn't already disabled the override. She might not have always trusted everything that Irina said, but she did trust her skills as an agent.

"47," Irina replied without a hint of humor, and Sydney simply rolled her eyes. Sloane's obsession with Rambaldi had always been obvious, but this was going too far.

She finally finished with the elevator controls and stood up next to her mother as the elevator lurched slowly upwards. She looked over at her mother and said softly, "Mom." It was almost a question.

Irina looked over at her, questioningly. "I just wanted to say thank you for helping me find Dad." Sydney looked down for a moment, "I know we haven't always had the best of relationship's," she unconsciously rubbed her shoulder, "but I couldn't have found Dad so quickly without you."

Irina smiled sorrowfully, "Sydney, I never wanted you to be a part of this life, you know that. But I will always be there to help you and Jack, if you'll let me." She cupped Sydney's face in one hand, "I'm so proud of you, Sweetheart." The elevator doors opened to a barrage of gunfire.

=======================================================================

Sloane had left him after they had heard that Irina's home had been destroyed, probably to confirm the news. Jack had used the time to try and get a grip on his emotions. Irina and Sydney couldn't both be dead. Sloane could have staged that whole scene, having that man come in there, just to manipulate Jack in someway. Unfortunately, it seemed that now, after several hours absence, Sloane was back.

"It seems that you were wrong, Jack," Sloane said with cold glee. "Your lovely wife won't be coming back to haunt me." He paused and adopted a sorrowful look, "I'm sorry, however, that Sydney was with her mother at the time. Perhaps if you had been a better father, she might have freed you instead of her mother. She might actually still be alive now." Sloane paced slowly around to the other side of Jack, while Jack struggled to contain his boiling fury.

He still wasn't certain that Irina or Sydney were gone and he would certainly not give Sloane the satisfaction of giving in. He didn't trust himself to reply, although he would have liked nothing more than to kill Sloane with his bare hands at that moment.

Sloane waved a hand at Jack dismissively, seeming to read his former friend's painfully blank expression, "I'm not lying to you here, Jack. I know you don't trust me, but my agents have confirmed this."

A low chuckle that Jack would have recognized anywhere came from the shadows behind Sloane. Jack smiled before he could stop himself. Despite almost twenty years of separation, he would know that voice anywhere. Irina stepped out of the shadows with a gun trained on Sloane.

From the other side of the room, Jack wasn't too surprised to see Sydney mirroring her mother's actions. "Your agents suck." Sydney said flatly.

"You were always one of my best agents," Sloane said, seemingly oblivious to the situation around him.

"You should have thought about that before you killed my fiancé," Sydney snapped back, her finger tightening on the trigger. She glanced away from Sloane for a moment, "Are you okay Dad?"

Jack nodded, glancing between his daughter and his wife. He had been so glad to see them alive that his first reaction to seeing them there had been one of shock and relief. Now, his relief and happiness was changing to fury. How dare Irina put Sydney in this much danger, how could she bring their daughter into the center of Sloane's operations.

"How could you?" He demanded coldly. Without bothering to wait for her to reply, he said, "I should have known better than to think you would keep any promise you ever made to me."

Jack's fury almost disappeared from shock if nothing else as he saw pain flash across Irina's eyes. She looked at him so coldly that he expected her to start yelling and screaming at him for what he had just said. Irina had never been one to back down in a confrontation. What she said though hit him more than a thousand screams though. "You will never know what I have given up for you, Jack, so don't think you can talk to me like that."

"You're the one that stole from me, left me-"

"Stop it," Sydney was almost yelling to be heard in the middle of their furious argument. She waved her gun at Sloane slightly, never giving him an opportunity to move. He was in no position to escape and from the look in her eye, Sloane knew better than to try anything. She took a deep breath. "We need to get out of here," she said slowly, "And you two need to start acting like the professionals that you are. He most likely has backup coming and we need to figure out what to do with Sloane."

"Kill him," Jack and Irina's reply was immediate and in unison.

Sydney stifled the urge to roll her eyes at her parents. "At least you agree on something." She watched as Irina, without taking her eyes off of Sloane, went over and untied Jack, while carefully not meeting his eyes.

She stepped back when she was done and moved away from him, closer to Sydney and Sloane. Sloane had been quiet all this time, but he chose that moment to speak up. "Perhaps you should reconsider before you decide to kill me. After all I have decided on many occasions to spare yours and I would be a very valuable resource for the CIA to have at their disposal."

Sydney looked at him in disbelief, "You have done nothing but make my life hell for the past two years. If you think there is any way the CIA could ever-"

It was Irina that cut him off. "No, Sydney. Let him spend the rest of his days in that cell. If the CIA has learned nothing else from my incarceration, it will be to never let him out under any circumstances. Besides should he ever choose not to cooperate, the death penalty is waiting for him."

Jack looked at her with suspicion, "Since when did you believe in leniency and mercy, Irina," he demanded. It would be just like her to be truly working with Sloane, setting he and Sydney up somehow and putting Sloane in custody to work on them from the inside.

"I don't," she said sharply, "I think death is too merciful for Arvin. I want him to live the rest of the life in the knowledge that his quest for Rambaldi was all for nothing. His wife, the only person I believe that he ever truly loved, died because of his obsession and he will never obtain his goal. I want him to feel pain, for everything he did to Sydney, and for everything he did to you, Jack."

Jack and Sydney were silenced. Neither knew how to respond.


	19. Chapter 19

Before either of them could muster a response, the sharp report of a weapon firing cut through the air. Even as Jack hit the floor, taking cover behind the table that Sloane had strapped him down to, he heard the distinctive sound of a bullet hitting a person and an accompanying gasp of shock and pain. His first instinct was to look for Sydney. He saw her a moment later, her body pressed up against the wall, standing well away from the room's only doorway with her gun in her hand, using it to carefully covering the ceiling where she and Irina had come from, in case the shooter out and the hall had a partner.

Quickly he turned back around and found Irina slumped to the floor. He could see the blood pouring out of the wound in his chest. From his vantage point he could also see the shooter aiming his weapon at Irina's crumpled form. There wasn't enough time for Jack to warn her, and even if he could he wasn't certain that she could have moved fast enough. He didn't even hesitate long enough to stop and think about why he was trying so hard to save Irina.

He knew that there was no he could even make it to her side soon enough to pull her out of the man's line of fire. His desperation increased as he saw the shooter begin to take his shot. A flicker of motion caught his eye. It was Arvin, moving out of the line of fire. Jack acted without thinking. He dove out from behind the overturned table that he had been using for cover and slammed into Sloane. The older man stumbled forwards into the path of the bullets and then Jack was surging passed Sloane, ruthlessly kicking the gun out of the man's hand and quickly knocking him unconscious.

He scooped up the shooter's gun and looked out into the rest of the hallway. It was empty for the moment. He turned around and headed back into the room where Sloane had held him prisoner. He didn't even spare his supposed former friend a glance.

As he had suspected, Sydney was already at her mother's side. She had one hand pressed to the wound on Irina's chest, trying to slow the bleeding. She glanced up at him and said quietly, "It's pretty bad, Dad."

He nodded, trusting her assessment. Sydney had seen enough gun shot wounds to know what she was talking about. He could also see the hint of uncertainty in her eyes.

Would he help Irina?

He stared down at Irina, at his wife and then made a simple choice. For the first time in years, where his wife was concerned at least, Jack Bristow made a decision with his heart rather than his head. He bent down beside her and brushed his thumb gently over her cheek.

"Don't go to sleep, Sweetheart," he informed her sharply, but with none of his customary loathing. "You need to stay awake for now."

Irina's eyes, which had been slowly drifting shut, snapped open with surprise at the touch of his hand and what he had said. "Jack," she asked with more weakness in her voice than she liked. She was seriously considering the possibility that her injuries were worse than she thought and that she was delirious. That was the only explanation that she could think of.

His only response was a nod. Irina felt someone squeeze her hand and she looked over at Sydney.

Sydney tried to smile at her, but it only came off as a worried twist of her lips. "Keep talking, Mom," she said tightly.

Irina stared at her daughter; she knew what Sydney was doing. She, like Jack, was tyring to keep her awake, but even under normal circumstances a conversation between the members of this family was tense. Idle chit chat didn't work well for them. She watched Jack with Sydney.

"Let me see it," he stated sharply and Sydney obediently lifted her bloody hand away. Jack looked at it for a moment and then picked up Irina's hand and placed it firmly over the wound, "Can you hold that?"

"Of course, Jack," she said trying to summon some of her usual tough imperviousness. It was hard to do with a gaping chest wound. She watched, detached as Jack handed Sydney the gun he had taken off of the shooter.

"Do you bring a getaway vehicle," he asked Irina a moment later.

"Out on the street. Around the corner." It was all she could do to get out those short almost sentences.

He and Sydney exchanged a Look and Sydney squeezed Irina's hand and bent over to kiss her cheek. She started to say something, but stopped after she opened her mouth. Without a word she turned away and moved towards the door with her gun in hand.

Irina bit back a wrenching groan of pain, barely managing to turn it into a choked half-sob, as Jack picked her up in his arms and followed Sydney. When she finally managed to regulate her breathing enough that she was calm and no longer gasping for breath, she studied his face for a long moment. It had been quite some time since she had, had the opportunity to simply stare at him. So much about him had changed; he looked so much older, so much harsher and grimmer. In his face she could read the lines of pain that had appeared over the last twenty years. Most of them she knew were of her own doing. But so much about had remained the same too, buried below the mask he used to hide whatever he was really feeling, Irina could see the man she had married and fallen in love with. She could see the incredibly romantic young man that loved her with his whole heart. She felt the beginnings of a tear start to well up in her and she forced herself to push it back.

She might be both emotionally and physically vulnerable at the moment, but she was Irina Derevko and she had no intention of crying over a gunshot wound and a bad day.

"Is Sydney okay," she asked him a moment later. She knew her injury was serious and her daughter's reaction earlier hadn't escaped her.

Jack looked down at her, oblivious to the whirlwind of thoughts that had been flowing through her mind, and nodded. "She's worried about you. She'll be find once she knows that you're okay."

Irina nodded, accepting that. "Jack," she said carefully a moment later, as she felt the sun on her face. With half of her attention she noted that they were now outside on the street. She saw Sydney fall back until she was only half a step in front of her parents and quickly tucked her pistol into the back of her pants. "Jack," she tried again, but somehow she couldn't quite get her tongue around the words she wanted to say.

He seemed to notice her struggle as he glanced down at her. "It's okay, Irina," he said easily, "We're almost there."

She wanted to scream at him that it was most definitely not okay, but her mind and body were rebelling against what she wanted and she could do nothing to stop her fall into unconsciousness.


	20. Chapter 20

After making sure Irina was settled and that her condition remained more or less stable after their flight, Jack walked back out of the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind him. He knew that slamming the door wouldn't wake Irina, and even if he did it would probably be a good thing- she had been unconscious for quite some time- but it was still an ingrained habit. He turned away from the door, and found Sydney staring at him as she paced back in forth across the living room floor. He waited in silence knowing that she wouldn't hesitate to ask him whatever question was obviously on her mind.

Sydney stopped pacing almost as soon as she saw him. "Is Mom going to be okay," she asked quietly.

He looked at her blandly for a moment, and then said with as much gentleness as he could muster, "I think so," he paused, "I would feel better if she could see a doctor, but I think she should be fine. I don't know Irina's medical history, but I do know that she's a very strong woman." He scrutinized Sydney, really looking at her for the first time in days. He had admittedly been very distracted by trying to keep Irina alive for the last few days. He was a competent enough field medic, although he had no official training, but he was far from a real doctor.

Jack hadn't noticed the desperate look in Sydney's expressive brown eyes though, or the worried set of her shoulders. He still hadn't had a chance to find out what had happened between the time that Sloane had dragged Sydney and Irina out and when they had rescued him from Sloane.

He took a step closer to Sydney and asked, "Are you okay, Sweetheart?" He saw mixture of emotions in her eyes and then Sydney was stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him in a desperate hug. At first Jack was so startled that he couldn't muster a response and then he felt Sydney stiffen and start to pull away. With no further hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her.

"I was so scared, Dad," she said, and he could hear her voice break with emotion, "I don't want to lose either of you again."

He raised a hand to gently stroke her head, where it was pressed firmly up against his chest. It was probably the most paternal gesture he had used in years. "Sydney," he said with as much reassurance as he could muster, "Irina is not going to die from this and I am fine- thanks to you and Irina."

She nodded in acknowledgement of what he said, and he could see her regaining some of her composure. After a moment or two more in his arms, she stepped back and distractedly wiped a lone tear away from her eyes. "It's not just that, Dad," she said slowly. "I don't want to have to go back to the CIA and working against Mom. I don't want to wake up one day and have to face the fact that for the rest of my life, I will know that I was my mother's killer. Sloane's dead, why does this have to go any further?"

"Sydney," he replied slowly, "Any situation involving Irina is complicated. Her actions in the past few days have been.." He paused searching for a word, "helpful, but after the way she broke her last agreement with the CIA, they will not give her a second chance."

"Helpful? Dad, she saved both of our lives and helped us bring down Sloane! I think that qualifies as a little bit more than helpful." She looked away from him and he could see her struggling to calm down. "Dad," she said in a much quieter voice that didn't lack any of her former intensity, "I know what Mom has done- she shot me for Pete's sake- but she does love us. She's not heartless, Dad."

He looked at her piercingly for a moment. In his opinion- and that of every psychologist that had ever evaluated Sydney- her greatest flaw as an agent was her trusting nature and empathy for others. Jack wasn't certain that he could trust Sydney's evaluation of the situation and Irina's motivations. She was an enigma at the best of times and discovering her true motivations were almost impossible. He had a hard time believing that Irina's motives were that selfless.

He didn't want to remember how he responded when he had seen Irina laying on the cold floor, covered in a growing quantity of her own blood, and looking as if death was only a breath away. It was so much easier to hold on to the rage and loathing he had built up for twenty years, towards his wife, than to admit the possibility that she might truly love him. He wasn't certain what he wanted to believe.

"All I'm asking, Dad," Sydney said softly, "Is that you listen to Mom before you jump to any conclusions. I know that she hurt you and betrayed you, but she wasn't lying about everything. Not the most important things."

"It's not that simple, Sydney," he said coldly, "Love or regret doesn't excuse anything that Irina did and it certainly doesn't change how I feel about her." Without sparing Sydney a backwards glance, Jack walked away, every step filled with fury. He didn't want to listen to whatever Sydney had to say in her mother's defense. Sugarcoating the truth and defending Irina's actions wouldn't change anything.

As he walked away, he heard Sydney say quietly under her breath, "Well, it's a good thing you're feelings for Mom haven't changed. It would be a shame if you stopped loving her now."

He didn't hesitate to slam the door this time. Sydney. Was. Wrong.

============================================================================ ============================================

When Irina woke up, her surroundings were considerably different than when she had fallen asleep. She was lying in a large comfortable bed in a warm, tastefully decorated bedroom. Despite her instinctive reaction to almost any unknown room, one of immediate caution and a fear of being caged against her will, she felt comfortable in the room almost instantly. She couldn't relax though, not until she knew where Jack and Sydney were. She managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed and sit up through sheer force of will.

She noticed that she no longer wore the clothes that she had put on to rescue Jack and that the gunshot wound in her chest had been cleaned and sown up. She wondered who she had to thank for that. Irina took a deep breath and forced herself to gather her strength before she stood up. She hated the weakness that she was feeling. It was dangerous to be weak. It could get her killed or caught, that is if she wasn't already.

She stood up abruptly and walked towards the bedroom door, ignoring the lightheaded sensation that she was feeling. A door behind her creaked open and she whirled around to face her attacker.

"You shouldn't be out of bed, Irina."

"Why Jack, I didn't know you still felt that way."

He scowled at her as she had expected. "I thought I made my feelings about you more than clear during the past year. I'm sure you remember a certain visit to Camp Harris and your brush with the death penalty."

His words were harsh, but no more so than she had come to expect from Jack since she had turned herself in. She was about to drop the subject and return to the relatively safer subject of their daughter, when she caught the look in his eye and remembered the way he had caressed her face as he started to carry her out of that building.

"You're lying." Before he could object or react to what she had said she uttered one more word. "Panama."

His reaction was just as vehement as she had expected. He gave off a scoffing laugh and said derisively, "Wasn't Panama the biggest lie of all Irina? You played me again. The only difference is, that this time I didn't trust you enough to let you slip away without a trace."

Irina opened her mouth to reply, she wasn't sure what she was going to say to him. Their unfortunate reality was made up of lies and constant deceptions. Sometimes the facts and details of her aliases came easier to her tongue than those of her own life. Still somehow, she had to tell him that there were a few things she had never had to lie to him about, whether he believed her or not. Jack was just as stubborn as she was, however, and he would believe whatever he wanted to believe.

She never got to find out what she would have said to him, because at that moment the door creaked open again and Sydney stepped into the room.

Sydney smiled easily when she saw that Irina was awake, but then she stated with concern, "You shouldn't be out of bed yet, Mom."

"I know," Irina said calmly, keeping her eyes locked on Jack's. "That's what your father was just telling me." She didn't look away until Jack turned away from her and walked over to the window.

Sydney, either not noticing or ignoring the subtext between her parents, smiled at her mother as Irina sat down on the bed. She sat down next to Irina, still smiling and then explained, "Dad took out the bullet and stitched up your wound, himself. We couldn't risk taking you to a hospital, but you have been unconscious for about three days now. We were starting to get worried about you."

Irina smiled reassuringly at Sydney, pushing Jack to the back of her mind for the moment. "I'll be fine, now, Sydney. I've had much worse." She looked down at her chest where the still healing wound was carefully concealed under a clean bandage and smiled enigmatically as she looked back up, "Thank you, Jack."

He nodded at her coolly, but Irina didn't see any malice in his features. She turned back to Sydney and finally asked the question that had been tugging at her mind since she had woken up. "Where are we?"

Sydney answered quickly, "A small island in the Caribbean. This location should be untraceable. No one will be able to connect any of us to this place. I created a whole new alias to buy this place that neither SD-6 nor the CIA know about."

Irina nodded, trusting what her daughter had said, and that they were safe for the moment. Sydney was smart and Jack would have double checked all of the possible contingencies. "Good," this time she looked over at Jack, "Have you decided what the next move is?"

Jack seemed intent on watching the scenery so once again it was Sydney that answered. "No, actually we were waiting for you to wake up. We thought you should have a voice in the discussion."

Irina wondered if Jack and Sydney had really made that decision together and how much of it was really at Sydney's insistence. Irina nodded, but remained silent. This conversation had actually been going fairly well. Now she could feel the tension creep back into the room. She and Sydney had talked several times as they worked together to find Jack and she knew that Sydney was starting to trust her again. This conversation could destroy all of that.

Sloane was dead. She remembered that much at least, from after she was shot. That was good news. It was the fulfillment of the goal that she had been working towards since she had learned that Sloane had recruited Sydney. Still, Irina wasn't sure whether or not Sydney would really leave the CIA or not. Their entire lifestyle was incredibly addictive, but at least Sydney would be free of Sloane's destructive manipulation.

Despite how happy Irina was though, Sloane's death also meant that she and Jack were no longer united against a common enemy. Jack no longer had any reason not to turn her over to the CIA and the death penalty that was waiting for her.

She stated as much, "I suppose you're plans for me include a CIA cell, right Jack?" She allowed the hint of bitterness to creep into her voice. She knew that she had committed numerous crimes- she didn't dispute that- but she currently had more reasons to live than she had, had in years. She was actually coming close to forming a real relationship with her daughter and, if she wasn't mistaken, it looked as if hate wasn't the only thing that Jack felt for her. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking, he had hated her for far too long.

Irina saw Sydney shift slightly and exchange a look with Jack, who still seemed to be intensely interested in the view out the window. "Is that what you would prefer Irina," he asked quietly, coolly.

"Of course not, Jack," she snapped, no longer trying to maintain her usual calm, cool and distant appearance. "But I don't think you'll give me much choice here."

"Mom," Sydney cut in quickly, "We wouldn't go to this much trouble to keep a low profile, just to turn you over to the CIA. Dad and I- " Sydney stopped abruptly at a look from Jack.

To Irina's surprise, Sydney stood up, looking back and forth between her parents. She finally focused on Irina. "Mom, Dad pretty much already knows how I feel about all of this, I think I'm going to let you two finish this conversation. I have arrangements that need to be made." She hesitated for a moment and then moved towards, Irina.

Irina was startled for a moment, almost shocked as Sydney hugged her tightly, but she returned it with as much strength as she could. Sydney pulled away and her gaze flickered towards her father, "Thank you," she whispered, "? ? ? Mom." I love you, Mom.

Irina could feel the tear trickling down her cheek. By the time she could speak again, Sydney had left the room, leaving her to, once again, face Jack.


	21. Chapter 21

Michael Vaughn's head throbbed as he glared at the computer screen in front of him. The explosion in Madrid hadn't been an isolated incident. Once they had gotten clear of the explosion, they had slowly begun to receive reports that the same thing had occurred at all of the other locations that they had suspected to have ties to Sloane. At the moment, Sloane's organization was in shambles and the whole intelligence community was involved in a chaotic whirlwind of activity.

Along with the collapse of Sloane's organization, both the CIA's and the NSC's collections of Rambaldi objects had been stolen and destroyed. As far as the CIA could tell, in fact, Rambaldi objects were being destroyed all around the world. In all of the chaos, finding Sydney, and now Jack, was far from a priority, at least for the Joint Task Force center. Vaughn didn't care what the CIA considered a priority at the moment, Sydney was the only thing that mattered. At the moment, though, he simply had no way to start looking for her. He had contacts searching for leads, but so far he had gotten nothing. It was as if Sydney, Jack, and even Irina had all disappeared.

Really the fact that all three of them were missing was too much of a coincidence to ignore. Still, his mind conjured up the bad rather than the good, arguing that it was the most likely outcome. Scenarios where Irina had captured Jack and Sydney and was torturing them for information or simply because she could, flashed through his mind. Images of Sydney lying dead and deserted in a pool of her own blood, refused to leave his mind. They haunted him.

A sharp ring startled him momentarily out of his dark and all too realistic thoughts. He reached to pick up the phone sitting on his desk automatically. "Vaughn," he responded blankly.

The phone continued to ring and he looked at it for a moment puzzled, until he realized that it was his cell phone. He dove into his coat pocket for it, when he realized that it was his personal cell phone. Snapping it open, barely even registering that the number on his cell phone was one he had never seen before and that the caller ID was registering it as unknown, he answered it quickly, "Vaughn."

The speaker, a garbled voice that was obviously electronically disguised, only uttered two very familiar words. "Joey's Pizza."

Fifteen minutes later he was pacing in the abandoned warehouse where he and Sydney had met so many times before the fall of SD-6. He wasn't sure why he was there, or what he was supposed to be doing- this could all be some wild goose chase. It was all that he had to go on, though. He was starting to lose what little patience that he had left, when his cell phone rang again. This time he caught it before the first ring was completed.

"Vaughn," he said sharply.

"Hi," a voice that he hadn't heard for far too long, said softly, "It's me."

"Sydney," he yelped, "What- Where are you, Syd? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said quickly.

Her voice was reassuring, and he could hear the special tone of voice that she reserved only for him. What worried him was the hesitation that he heard behind it. His spy-trained mind went into overdrive. Was she really telling the truth? Was someone forcing her to make this call to get the CIA off of their back? What was going on?

"I-" she hesitated again, "I can't tell you where I am," she said quickly. "I'm fine," she repeated, "and Dad's here with me," she added, "But I can't tell you much more than that. A lot has happened, and there's a lot that I still need to tell you, but I don't want to do this over the phone."

"Come home," he said quickly, going into handler mode almost immediately. "I can book you a flight, or arrange for a contact to smuggle you back into the country." He paused, his mind working through the possibilities, "Are you being tracked, Syd?"

"No," she said quickly, "Nothing like that. Listen Vaughn, I have to go." She sounded genuinely upset that she couldn't keep talking to him, "I know everything's crazy at work right now, but I can explain everything when I get home. Right now, though, I just need you to trust me. I'm fine," she said again, "And I should be home in a few days. I just didn't want you to worry," she added more softly.

Vaughn wanted to tell her that he was still worried about her, that he wouldn't stop worrying until she was home and safe in his arms, but he didn't. Whatever was going on at the moment, Sydney needed- or at least wanted- his support and he could easily give her that. He missed her so much and the sooner that she could get back the better. "Be safe," he said softly, wanting to let her know everything that he was feeling, but refraining for the moment. She was right, now was not the time or the place. When she got home, though. "Come back soon, Syd. I miss you."

He heard her hesitate again, "I-" She froze for a second, and he wondered what she was going to say. "I missed you, too," she said genuinely and the moment was passed. Still he couldn't help but smile. He was fairly certain that he knew what she had been about to say.

"Bye, Syd," he said quietly. He heard her faint reply before the phone clicked off. Vaughn walked out of the warehouse with a smile. He climbed easily into his car and started back to the office. Sydney would be home soon.

======================================================================

By nature, Irina wasn't a woman who retreated from conflicts. If she had been, she wouldn't have survived four decades in her world and she certainly wouldn't have become the leader of an organization like the Man's.

It was simple really, what she had to do now. She had come to the same conclusion before, when she and Jack were in flight to Stockholm. She had decided then that once she had freed Sydney from Sloane she would stop allowing missions and their equally insane lives get between she and Jack. The first step towards that goal, Irina knew, was to talk to Jack. That of course, was easier said than done.

"Why, Jack," was all she asked. She didn't expect him to know what she was talking about really. Sometimes when they were working together and managed to forget for a moment at least, that they were supposed to hate one another, it was almost as if they could read each others mind. This wasn't one of those moments.

"Why what, Irina," he replied sharply. He seemed distracted by something else and that puzzled Irina. Something had to really be bothering Jack for him to be so distracted by it.

"Why did you help me when that guard shot me, Jack? I saw what you did to take out the shooter, and I remember everything else that you did, as well."

Jack looked at her with dry amusement, but she could see the darker turmoil of the emotions that he was hiding under that façade. "It wasn't that much of a hardship to see Sloane killed," he said easily, "And," he added with more of the grim iciness that she was used to from Jack, "as for saving your life. I did that for Sydney's sake. She seems to have reformed an emotional attachment to you. I didn't want her to lose her mother again."

"You're lying," she said softly, but with incontrovertible steeliness in her voice. "If Sydney's emotional well being were all that you had in mind, you wouldn't have-" She cut herself off abruptly.

Jack's eyes were boring into her suddenly, almost challenging her to finish the sentence and bring up things that had been buried for a very long time.

Remembering her wound for the moment, Irina stood up carefully off of the bed and walked towards him slowly. She stood in front of him easily, barely having to tilt her head up at all to meet his eyes. "You didn't have to do this, Jack," she said calmly, and reached towards his face.

He met her eyes for a split second, and then his hand grabbed her wrist, freezing it in a painfully tight grip. "Don't, Irina."

A hint of a smile tugged at her lips, "You started it, Jack."

He grimaced, "Although that is debatable, Irina. I will take care of it now. This will end here and now. If the last several decades have taught me nothing else, I have learned that anytime that I trust you, you will betray me."

She backed a step away from him and leaned casually up against a dark mahogany dresser. The gunshot wound in her chest was determined to remind her that she wasn't as young as she used to be. She needed more time to recover than she had in the past. She hated the way that she had suddenly felt weak. "Have you ever considered, Jack, that maybe everything wasn't as it seemed?"

He looked at her in almost blatant disbelief, "Nothing is ever as it seems when you're involved, Irina. You are nothing but lies and deception."

"I didn't lie to you this time," she stated calmly. "I promised you I would keep Sydney safe. I did and we rescued you."

"Excuse me, if I don't feel indebted to you, Irina."

"I don't want you to feel indebted to me, Jack," she snapped, "I just want you to listen to me."

He smirked at her harshly, "You lost that right a long time ago, Irina."

"Things change," she shot back, "Don't you see, I have no reason to lie to you. Sloane is dead, and even as we speak, my people have a standing order to find and completely destroy all of Rambaldi's works." She stepped back towards him, "Jack, I'm in control of a large intelligence network, if I want information from or about the CIA, I don't have to seduce one of their agents to get it."

"Then why are you doing this, Irina? What do you want?"

"You," she said simply, "Sydney. I want to be part of a family again. I want to tell you something and have you believe me- without a C4 necklace."

"It's too late for that, Irina." He turned sharply on his heel and started to walk away.

It had been years since Irina had truly been in danger of loosing what she wanted, of having no resources at her fingertips, no other options. Desperation was a foreign and uncomfortable feeling to her. "Jack," she snapped, as he lifted a hand to open the door, "Look me in the eye and tell me that you don't love me."

He stopped where he was and paused for a long moment. He turned around to face her, crossing the distance between then in two quick steps. His hand slammed into the wall millimeters to the left of Irina's head.

She didn't even flinch.

"Leave me alone, Irina," he roared. "You have no right to ask that. You lied to me for ten years, claiming that you loved me."

Irina leaned forward until her face was right next to his and whispered, "I'm not going to hurt you again, Jack. I wasn't lying. I did love you and I do love you."

This time Jack didn't stop her as she reached towards his face, he seemed to be frozen- either unwilling or unable to move and break the moment. Her fingers trailed across his face and she leaned forward to kiss his lips softly. She had told him everything that she could say. She let her hand trail down to rest on his chest, but refused to move away from him, savoring his proximity even as she waited for him to push her away. She was surprised- pleasantly so- when his lips found hers again, responding as he hadn't a moment before.

When they pulled apart a moment later the first thing that Irina noticed was the absence of the hard, cold look in Jack's eyes. She cocked her at him curiously. She hadn't expected her words, or her kiss, to effect him. She opened her mouth to question him, but didn't speak as she pressed a finger to his lips.

"Ask me tomorrow," he said softly. "Ask me everyday until you have the answer that you want."

Irina smiled. His answer wasn't to declare his undying love for her. That would be too unbelievable. As much as she wanted to hear Jack say that he loved her, she didn't care. There was an implied promise in his words that didn't escape her. Jack had said that she could ask him every day. That meant that he wanted her there with him everyday, and while not everything she hoped for, Irina could definitely live with that for now.

She leaned back in and kissed him again. Everything else could wait.


	22. Chapter 22

Two weeks later

Jack Bristow paused for a moment as he stepped into the living. He took a moment to look at the young woman sleeping on his couch. Sydney looked so much like her mother. It was a fact that he had once cursed. A constant reminder of the illusions that he had once cherished as a beloved reality. His love for his daughter, however, went far beyond any physical similarities that she shared with Irina. It was what had motivated him to become a double for the CIA, to work so hard to destroy people like Arvin Sloane, and to seek help from Irina. He would do anything for his daughter. He wondered if she knew that.

So much had changed in the last two weeks, he reflected as Irina came up behind him. He half turned to face her and easily returned the embrace that she offered. Together they stood for a moment simply watching their daughter sleep. It was eerily reminiscent of similar incidents from Sydney's childhood. Exhausted from school and play dates with friends she would have fallen asleep on the couch as her parents finished up the dishes in the kitchen. Now it was jetlag from a recent mission that had sent her into an exhausted slumber.

"Have you called Michael?" Irina's voice was quiet as she barely tilted her head to look up in to Jack's eyes.

He nodded, still displeased with the fact that his daughter had moved in with her former handler only days after she had returned to Los Angeles. Apparently her capture by Sloane and the destruction of his organization, had encouraged Sydney not to waste anymore time in his life. "Agent Vaughn should be here in a moment to take Sydney home." His words were clipped.

"You know, Jack, one day you will have to forgive him for stealing your little girl's heart, especially once he becomes your son-in-law," Irina reminded him a little too happily for his taste.

He suspected that she liked to rub it in because she knew it irritated him. Jack sighed slightly. Since Irina and Sydney had worked together to free him, they seemed to be trying to give him a heart attack. This seemed to be Irina's newest attempt. At least he hoped that it wasn't true. Michael Vaughn was nice enough, but he certainly wasn't good enough for Jack's daughter.

"Has Sydney told you something?"

Irina seemed to be amused by his protectiveness. "Not yet, but Jack, really it's only a matter of time." She paused and then smiled, leaning in to kiss him, "Some things are simply inevitable."

He kissed her back without hesitation. The past two weeks had been both full of difficulties and wonderful moments. Convincing the CIA that Irina had actually been working with him in secret since her apparent betrayal in Panama, had been a difficult task. The evidence that Irina's agents had fabricated to support their deception had been very helpful. It had helped also helped that Sydney had once again threatened to quit and this time with the loudly stated intention of joining her mother's organization. Kendall had been almost apoplectic with rage and seemed to only be capable of bellowing loudly at frightened new agents until he had calmed down enough to grudgingly sign the papers guaranteeing Irina's pardon.

Jack had actually spent the rest of the week on vacation from work. He had spent the time with Irina and had been amazed at how little he knew about her. He had studied Irina Derevko, Master Spy and Criminal for over thirty years, but he had never taken the time to study Irina the Woman. He had been surprised at both how similar and how different she was from Laura. So much about her was the same, yet he never seemed to forget that this woman was not the woman who had pretended to be a simple school teacher. Irina was so much more than that.

The first time Sydney had come over for dinner with them had been nearly disastrous. Sitting down at a table and attempting to eat a traditional family dinner seemed almost impossible. None of them were used to the idea of a traditional family meal and the conversation had floundered badly. Jack had begun to wonder if they actually had anything to talk about when people weren't trying to kill them. It was hard to find a topic of conversation that didn't bring up painful memories or touch on a sore subject for anyone. It hadn't taken long however, for all three of them to relax. After that the dinners had become an almost nightly ritual when Sydney wasn't away on a mission.

Nothing was perfect, Jack knew. Thirty years and a myriad of lies and betrayals stood in between he and Irina. They had attempted to destroy one another at various times and worked for opposing governments and organizations covertly or overtly for most of their adult lives. In that moment, however, knowing all that he knew about Irina, none of it seemed to matter. They had a history. It was what bound them together and tore them apart. Irina was unquestionably right, however. Some things, like his love for Irina, were simply inevitable.

~finis~


End file.
